1. MISSING MARK by Julie Kramer. (AUDIO) #2 Riley Spartz 'amateur sleuth' mystery set in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Riley is an investigative television reporter trying to come up with an interesting story for the upcoming "sweeps week" when ratings are even more important than usual. Perusing the want ads in the newspaper, she sees an ad that piques her interest: "For Sale: Wedding dress, never worn." Intrigued, she answers the ad on the pretense of wanting to buy the dress to learn why the bride-to-be never got to wear the dress. It turns out she was left at the altar, the groom vanishing into thin air about six months ago, and yet Riley is wondering why no one has made much of an effort to find him. She comes clean to Madeline Post, the bride, and confesses to her real purpose, and convinces her that doing the story might bring new information about where Mark, her fiance, may have gone. When Riley starts investigating, she finds a lot of interesting secrets about the groom--and the bride, and several other people. Her boss isn't really interested in the story, and wants Riley to focus on covering the kidnapping of a huge lake bass from the Underwater Adventures park at the Mall of America. A radical animal rights groups supposedly is taking credit, but that smells fishy to Riley. It's hard to get into details without giving too much away here--but suffice it to say, this was an awesome book! I am not a fan of the TV news--or news in general really, and much of the reason for that is explained in this series by the author who used to be a TV news producer herself. It's sad that so much of what passes for news is drivel designed to increase ratings rather than actually report newsworthy things. That said, I really like Riley, and the author is an obvious native to the area as the whole book is soaked with the ambiance of Minnesota. I think even if you don't know the Twin Cities, you'll still like this, though. While I guessed at the bad guy fairly early on, there were a couple of plot twists I didn't see coming at all. And I learned something too, about a subject I'd never heard of before, "face blindness." How odd! Anyway--read it! Great book! Or even listen to it like I did. The reader, Bernadette Dunn--who was a new-to-me narrator--did a spectacular job! A+
2. VEIL OF LIES by Jeri Westerson. #1 Crispin Guest "medieval noir" mystery set in 1380's England. Crispin is a fallen knight, set to be hung for being part of a treasonous plot against Richard II. He was given a last-minute reprieve; his life was spared, but he was stripped of lands, property and title and now makes a living on the mean streets of London, living hand to mouth and shunned by those of his former class. Known as 'the Tracker,' he investigates, finds things, tracks people down and cobbles together a bleak living with tiny living quarters above a tinker's shop. Despite his fall from grace, Crispin has little sympathy for those of the lower classes that he's now forced to hobnob with, and still believes he is above them, and of a better class. It's now eight years after his disgrace. When Crispin is asked by a wealthy cloth merchant to follow his wife and find out if she's cheating on him, he takes the case though it's only his empty pockets that make him do so. When he returns to report the wife's infidelity and collect payment, Crispin finds Nicholas Walcote dead--murdered by stabbing. The local sheriff is called in, and as in most private eye cases, bumbles through, making headway only by listening to Crispin's observations. When the widow--whom Crispin learns was once a chambermaid before marrying her master--wants to hire him to find a religious relic that her husband was said to have hidden, he is reluctant, but a fat coin purse persuades him otherwise--and he is intrigued by Mrs. Walcote, as well. Eventually links are shown to international trade sabotage and a plot against the government. I really enjoyed this book--the writing style was easy to read, the characters very interesting, and even though Crispin could be somewhat of a butthead at times, I ultimately liked him too. Lots of great historical detail--sometimes even a bit too much...I am not terribly interested in fashion, whether it be modern or historical, and this book did have a lot of descriptions of the clothing, which I admit to sometimes skimming a bit. Otherwise--great! A.
3. EVIL UNDER THE SUN by Agatha Christie. (AUDIO) One of the Hercule Poirot mysteries, read by David Suchet, who plays the detective in the TV series. Poirot is on holiday, at the English seaside in August. No one quite believes he's not there working on something, though. And of course when the body of beautiful former actress Arlena Stewart Marshall turns up on a deserted cove, many suspects--including her husband and her lover--come to the fore as Poirot helps the local police with their inquiries. But nearly everyone who had a motive and large enough hands to strangle her has an ironclad alibi--including being in Poirot's company at the time of the killing. So who did the dastardly deed and how? Suchet is a delightful reader, getting a variety of accents, from Poirot's himself (of course!) to various English regional accents to an American Texas drawl. No one plots a mystery better than Christie, and though I had read this book many years ago, I'd forgotten how it was done, so it was delightful to listen along as the story unfolds until finally Poirot unveils the secret at the end. Wonderful stuff, and will definitely be getting more of these to listen to. A+
4. THE FLANDERS PANEL by Arturo Perez-Reverte. A meaty, rich and literary mystery set in Spain. Julia, an art restorer, has become infatuated with the painting she's currently working on, The Game of Chess painted by one of the Flemish masters, Pieter Van Huys. (The artist is real, the painting fictional.) In the painting, two men play chess while a woman in black reads a book in the background, and Julia discovers a hidden inscription via x-ray, in Latin which translates to 'Who Killed the Knight?' Does the inscription refer to the man in the picture--a knight who was indeed killed by a crossbow some months after the painting was done--or the chess knight? Julia's intrigued by the story the painting tells and begins researching its history, when she receives a card with a chess move on it. Her friend and mentor, Cesar, an older antiquarian collector, helps her locate a chess master, Munoz, who assists Julia in replaying the chess match backwards to see if they can determine who 'took' the knight in the game. When an art historian (and former lover) Julia asked to look into the painting ends up dead in suspicious circumstances, Julia becomes frightened but also more drawn into the intrigue. I liked this story, although it was (like most heavy literary mysteries) slow-going in places, and also liked it despite the fact that I don't play chess--I think it would be much more interesting to someone who does, as the book came illustrated with diagrams of the various moves which meant essentially nothing to me. I was surprised at the ending as I had someone else altogether in mind for the bad guy, and the book was quite suspenseful as it went on. It wasn't a book I was crazy about but was quite good and filled the bill as the "something different" I was looking for when I picked it up. B+
5. THE WINDS OF CHANGE by Martha Grimes Number umpteen in Scotland Yard's Chief Superintendent Richard Jury series. Jury once again teams up with Melrose Plant--this time posing as a "turf specialist" at the estate of a wealthy man where an unknown woman was found murdered. Cmdr. Brian Macalvie has called Jury in and he goes willingly, believing there may be a connection between the murdered woman and the murder of a young girl in London. There is a question of a pedophile ring, of cases of mistaken identity, and as always, deceit and treachery. Jury is still recovering physically from the gunshot wound he suffered a few months ago, but his brain is as active as always, making connections that others don't see. I love the characters in this series--after reading so many of them, they have become dear friends, although I still find it a bit ludicrous that Jury has Melrose posing as all these weird 'specialists' in fields he knows nothing about. This mystery was actually quite intriguing and I was sucked into the story from the beginning. This was one of the better recent entries I've read--some have been rather disappointing but this was back on track, if a bit predictable. B+
6. THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN by Susan Hill. First in a police procedural series set in the fictional UK town of Lafferton. Although it's billed as a "Simon Serrailler" series, we barely get to meet this Chief Inspector and nothing is told from his point of view til the very end. We spend most of our time with his new DS, Freya Graffham, newly installed, a transfer from the Metropolitan Police in London. She's looking for a little peace and quiet and time away after a brief but disastrously disheartening marriage. When the owner of a small care home for dementia patients calls in at the police station to report one of her employees missing, Freya investigates briefly and gets a feeling that something is 'off' about the disappearance. When a second person, a young depressed girl also vanishes, her boss gives the go-ahead for a more in-depth investigation and Freya discovers several other missing people from the town that have as yet gone unexplained. They are of both sexes, a variety of ages and backgrounds, and seemingly have nothing in common. We know what's going on, as some chapters are written from the POV of the person who has taken these people--we just don't know who he is, although I did guess that about halfway through. It's still very interesting to watch Freya and her DC make the connections, often relying on intuition as to what clues are important.
The story itself is wonderful with great details about the town and surroundings, the settings, and Freya's life. There's a surprise ending that takes your breath away, and some parts of the story and some characters that don't have a whole lot of connection to the main problem, but are interesting nonetheless. What threw me off is the publisher's calling this the "Serrailler" series...for unless we actually get to see Simon Serrailler in action more next time, to me it would be best just called the Lafferton series, as we're introduced to many other characters that we know much better than Simon. Although he's intriguing, he's still nothing more than a cardboard cutout of a character at this point. A.
7. A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD by Julia Spencer-Fleming. #2 Rev. Clare Fergusson/Sheriff Russ Van Alstyne mystery set in Miller's Kill, NY. When the local medical examiner is badly beaten up, followed by savage beating to a video store owner, Clare begins to suspect the attacks as hate crimes against homosexuals and is frustrated when Russ won't alert the public to be extra wary. Russ fears the public panicking, or other hate mongers perpetrating copycat crimes. But when a third man--a developer in the area to build a luxury spa complex--is killed, and Clare finds the body, in her shaken state, she makes a passionate statement to a reporter about the connections, angering Russ beyond words. She decides to redeem herself by looking more closely into the developer's dealings, and in the process does some really unbelievably stupid things, putting herself in harm's way several times. Now, I love this author's writing style. It's smooth and easy to read and the dialogue is natural and believable. I like her sense of place and I even like both Clare and Russ as individuals. The mystery I figured out fairly early on, but I often do, so that wasn't a huge problem. What I find hard to swallow are first, the continual stupid, precarious situations Clare puts herself in (a tipsy minister searching the bedroom of the host of a party she attends, who then ends up jumping out the bathroom window when he comes into the bedroom...after she's hidden there listening in on a long conversation between him and another person??) and second, the relationship between her and Russ and the continual sexual tension. If that is going to continue book to book to book, I am just plain not going to continue reading the series. He's a married man. She's a minister, and while celibacy is not a requirement of the Episcopalian church, she even says herself in this book that if a minister isn't married, chasteness is the expectation. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but there's nothing I dislike more than a hypocrite. So to continue to play up this part of the relationship to me just seems unwise and would be annoying (to me anyway) to no end. Kill off the wife or something. Have Clare leave her post. But please don't continue on as they are. Still undecided if I will continue reading or not--as I said, I like the writing. I just get really tired of romance masquerading as mystery is all. C+
8. DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER by Elizabeth Zelvin. #1 Bruce Kohler mystery. Bruce is an alcoholic who finds himself waking up from a blackout in the detox center in the Bowery in New York--which is considered to be pretty low. Especially since it's Christmas. The first couple of days go by in a fog, but Bruce remembers finding the body of an old man who was known to be dying of cancer in the laundry room at the detox. Bruce strikes up a friendship with a younger man named Godfrey Kettleworth, a moneyed man who must've fallen quite far to be where he is now--although he still teasingly introduces himself as God. Known as Guff to the few people whom he calls friend, he returns from his New Year's pass and dies a few hours later in a series of horrible convulsions as Bruce looks on. It's easy to write these deaths off as the natural sequelae of alcoholism, but things just don't seem right to Bruce. His childhood friend Jimmy (also an alcoholic, though sober now for several years) and Jimmy's girlfriend Barbara, also with addiction issues and now a counselor, have distanced themselves from Bruce and his hurtful alcoholic escapades over the years. But when he visits them, they both see something different in him and believe this time he may actually be serious about sobriety. Barbara encourages Bruce to look into the deaths of these people--and they later learn through the grapevine that there's been more deaths than usual among the detox client community in other facilities, too. But was Guff's death a personal matter relating to his many relatives that he'd alienated over the years? Bruce makes his tentative steps through sobriety in an effort to find out. Loved this book--loved the characters, the information about addiction and recovery and the real sense of place the author gives to New York. I've never been there, and don't really want to go, but she paints such a great picture of it that I feel I don't really have to! A.
9. WITCHES ABROAD by Terry Pratchett. #12 in publication order of the Discworld humorous fantasy series, this is a re-read for me of one of my favorites in the series in which the witches--Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax and Magrat Garlick (oh, and don't forget Greebo!) are off to "foreign parts" to try to stop an evil godmother from making people play parts in the usual fairy tales. Hilarious and yet with plenty of poignant observation about life (and DEATH) as usual. Wonderful! A++ as always.
10. HOLLY BLUES by Susan Wittig Albert. #18 in the China Bayles "herb shop" mystery series. Pecan Springs is getting ready for Christmas, and China is glad to see an upswing in business at Thyme & Seasons. The poor economy has hit small businesses hard, especially businesses that sell non-essential items, so belts are beginning to tighten a bit in the McQuaid-Bayles household. They are also adjusting to having China's niece whom she and Mike have adopted since the death of her half-brother. This will be Kate's first Christmas with them, and China wants it to be special. So obviously when Mike's crazy ex-wife Sally--mother to Brian, his teenage son--shows up at the shop, China's not thrilled. Still, in the spirit of the season, she invites Sally, who is once again down on her luck and in trouble, to stay with them over the holiday--much to McQuaid's displeasure. When China makes the invitation, she doesn't realize just how MUCH trouble Sally is in--but of course she finds out before too long. I started out listening to the audio version of this book and had to set it aside after about 5 chapters and switch to the print version, which I thankfully had on hand. The reader's voice and reading style just annoyed me, plus her voices were terrible and hard to distinguish one from another. The book takes place in Texas and as far as I remember, most of the main characters are native Texans, and yet Ruby was the only one with even a hint of a Texas accent, and it was so overdone and fake sounding it grated on my nerves. I think my enjoyment of the book was somewhat lessened by remembering that voice even when I switched to print. It was a fairly typical visit to Pecan Springs, and I liked the visit with old friends. I will definitely stick to the print version of this series in future, though! B.
11. SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DEVOUR by Fred Vargas. #2 in the Chief Inspector Adamsberg series set in France. A large wolf is killing sheep in the mountains of France, and when Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg hears about it on the news, his interest is piqued, as he grew up in the Pyrenees and is familiar with wolf lore. When a woman is killed in her sheep barn, supposedly by the same wolf, his interest heightens, as he knows wolves don't typically attack humans. When he notices his lost love, Camille, on the news report in the village where the attack takes place, he follows the story more closely. Camille, meanwhile, is on a quest of her own to find the wolf--and the man she and her lover, a Canadian wildlife researcher--believe is controlling it. Rumors spread about him being a werewolf, but that doesn't put Camille off as she travels from village to village with the shepherd and the adopted son of the woman who was killed, trying to find the man. When another human is dead, attacked the same way, Camille finally breaks down and calls Adamsberg and asks for his help since the police are not really involved in any way at this point--they believe that Suzanne was killed by a wolf, and thus there is nothing for them to investigate. Very intriguing book written in a unique style. Although I had an inkling about the bad guy fairly early on, I had no idea of the whys and wherefores, so it was still quite interesting. Adamsberg is a unique character and I much look forward to reading more in this series. A.
12. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS by Agatha Christie (AUDIO) My umpteenth re-reading--but first listening experience--of one of my favorite mysteries of all time, and a classic from the grand dame of mystery. The Orient Express, a train heading out from Istanbul, is trapped by a snowstorm in the mountains of Yugoslavia. A man is killed--a man who, a few hours previously, had tried to hire Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, to find the person who was after him. Poirot had told him he wasn't interested but then is asked by the head of the railway company (who happened to be on board) to investigate the man's death. Which Poirot does with his usual flair and cunning mind. Excellent book, and wonderfully read by David Suchet, who portrayed Poirot on the TV series. He does the other voices brilliantly too. A+
13. THE MERMAID'S MADNESS by Jim C. Hines. #2 in the Princess light fantasy series featuring Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (aka Snow, Talia and Danielle.) While attempting to make a yearly gift to the undine (merfolk) the royals of Lorindar find out that Lirea, daughter of the king of the undine, has killed him in a coup and is now out to conquer the human race as well. The undine attack and Queen Beatrice is stabbed with a magical knife that sucks her soul out, leaving the shell of her body barely alive. The three princesses venture off to an isolated island where Lirea's grandmother, a powerful sorceress, is living in exile, hoping that she can undo the magic of the knife and reunite Bea's soul with her body. Dangers and treachery lie ahead for the three young women as the story unfolds. I like this series, although I had my doubts--since it was billed as a sort of fairy tale Charlie's Angels. But it's mostly fairy tales with a darker twist and a very interesting backstory--happily ever after being somewhat of a myth. Looking forward to the third book in the trilogy, and then to see what interesting concept the author will come up with next. A.
14. THE FOURTH WATCHER by Timothy Hallinan. #2 Poke Rafferty mystery set in Bangkok, Thailand. Poke comes face to face with a ghost from his past--his father, Frank Rafferty, who left he and his mother and moved to China when Poke was sixteen and whom he's not seen since. Frank is in trouble, and he thinks Poke may be as well, simply by virtue of his kinship. A well-connected Colonel Chu is after Frank, and he is a ruthless man who stops at nothing to get what he wants. When a North Korean counterfeiting scheme affects Poke's girlfriend Rose's housecleaning business because of some fake bills her business partner received from the bank, he must deal with a nasty US agent investigating the counterfeit bills on top of his father's reappearance--and the discovery that he has a full-grown half-sister too, it's about all the poor man can handle. On the up side though, Rose finally accepts his marriage proposal, but they have to get these two intersecting problems sorted out before they can begin to make any wedding plans. All I can say about this book is WOW! It's almost unputdownable--although of course I had to reluctantly do so, as work tends to get in the way--a real rollercoaster ride through Bangkok and it's seedier side as Poke tries to deal with these two urgent, life-threatening situations without getting any of his friends and family killed or jailed. I absolutely love Poke and his family, love the author's writing style and the ambiance he is able to create just by stringing a few words together. I have the third book in the series here waiting for me, and I'm sure it's not going to be too long before it calls my name. A+
15. THE ELIXIR OF DEATH by Bernard Knight. #10 Crowner John mystery set in medieval Devon county, UK. When the dead bodies of Thorgils, a ship's captain and his crew wash up in the mouth of the river along with their battered ship, Crowner John first believes it's a case of straightforward piracy. But further investigation makes him think that something else is afoot, and he's right. There's another plot against King Richard, set up by none other than Prince John--with the help of John's brother-in-law, former Sheriff Richard de Revelle. They've brought an alchemist to Devon from Outremer to work with a local alchemist in an attempt to turn base metals into gold that John can then use in his efforts to overthrow his brother from the throne. Since Thorgils is the husband of one of John's former mistresses, he feels honor-bound to get to the cause of his death, and before long, the vicious murder and decapitation of a manor lord with a similar stab wound to Thorgils' begin to make the tenuous connection between the two crimes--John and his crew are off across the county asking questions and gleaning information over pots of ale in local taverns. On a personal note, Thomas, John's defrocked clerk, is reinstated by the church and apologized to for wrongfully removing him from the priesthood, having been falsely accused of raping a young female student. And John is once again trying to balance his time between his duties as Crowner, his mistress Nesta at the Bush Inn and his loathsome wife Matilda. Enjoyable as always, with great characters and a wonderful sense of place and time. A.
16. TEA TIME FOR THE TRADITIONALLY BUILT by Alexander McCall Smith. #10 Ladies No.1 Detective Agency cozy mystery set in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi investigate a local football team at the behest of their owner who can't understand why such a talented team has suddenly stopped winning. He thinks someone has been paid to throw games and he wants the Ladies to find out who it is. Meanwhile, Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Makutsi's fiance, unknowingly hires her arch enemy, Violet Septholo to work as a saleswoman in the bed department at his Double Comfort Furniture Store. Mma Makutsi is certain that Violet is after her fiance, but knows she is likely to drive Phuti away if she says anything. She and Mma Ramotswe puzzle out how to approach the situation. And it's a sad day for Mma Ramotswe, as her tiny white van finally coughs its last breaths and must be replaced by a medium-sized blue van. A great visit as usual, not much of a mystery, just some wonderful characters and an ambiance that can't be beat. A.
17. THE CALLING by Inger Ash Wolfe First in the Hazel Micallef mystery series set in small-town Canada. Hazel is a Detective Inspector in a small town and she's been clamoring for years to get a "real" chief at their station but has been constantly put off by the higher-ups, saying no one more senior is needed since major crime is so rarely a problem. She's sixty-one, nearing retirement age, has a chronic back pain problem and likes her booze rather too much, and lives with her elderly (but still spry) mother, who is the former mayor. When an elderly citizen of the town is found murdered in her home, and brutally so, Hazel begs to differ about the lack of need for more assistance. Delia Chandler was dying and it's believed she invited someone into her home to help with an assisted suicide, but that the person then took things to another level. The killer was very meticulous and left very few clues to go on. Another killing not too far away a couple of days later makes Hazel think they are dealing with a serial killer, even though there are notable differences. Hazel again appeals for help and is turned down, so she musters what forces she can and begins investigating--not always strictly following procedure--and to her horror, discovers that this killer has been working his away across Canada from the west and that his likely victims number in the double digits over the past couple of months. As the investigation continues with Hazel's renegade style dictating the course, Hazel tracks the killer but also gets herself in some hot water with the higher-ups. I did see the plot twist at the end coming, but this book was excellent and virtually un-put-down-able. Hazel was well-fleshed and an interesting character from the get-go, and the killer as twisted and strange as they come. Very much looking forward to the next in series and getting to know Hazel's friends and family better too. Highly recommended! A+
Current reads: Listening to A MURDEROUS PROCESSION by ARIANA FRANKLIN in audio from the library. In print, reading LOVE IS THE BOND by M.R. Sellars and HARDWARE by Linda Barnes.
Cheryl
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
JULY 2010
1. PRETTY IN INK by Karen E. Olson. #2 Tattoo Shop mystery, featuring Brett Kavanaugh, who owns the Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas. Brett is at a drag queen show, an invited guest because she did tattoos for several of the stars, when one of them is attacked deliberately during the show--a champagne cork popped directly at her. When Trevor (aka Britney Brassieres) later ends up dead, the apparent victim of poison, Brett gets involved in a bizarre case involving several other drag queens, her trainee employee Charlotte, and the police detective who is now dating her brother Tim's ex-fiancee. Oh, and there's a handsome emergency room doctor in the mix as well. Soon the FBI is involved, as the poison was nothing less than ricin, a seriously dangerous chemical often used in terrorist attacks. Somehow, Brett's employee Charlotte is mixed up in all of it, though she's not sure just how, and she begins to doubt how well she really knew the girl. I actually liked this better than the first one. I feel like I'm getting to know Brett better, and while there is a little romance thrown in, it didn't feel like the focus of the book, and this was definitely better than your average cozy, although as usual with amateur sleuth mysteries, the main character ends up doing some pretty stupid stuff. The tattoo informaton is interesting too, of course. I give it a solid B+.
2. BONE RATTLER by Eliot Pattison. #1 Duncan McCallum mystery set in Colonial America, New York state of 1750's. Duncan is a Highland Scot, once training as a doctor, now an indentured servant to the Ramsey Company, plucked from prison (where he was put for supposedly aiding the Highland rebellion) to go to the new world. When the new tutor to the Ramsey children is murdered on board the ship heading to America, Duncan is bullied into taking his place. He does so fearfully, having received a mysterious warning from his friend Adam who died a few days previously, and also a posthumous warning from the tutor himself in the form of cryptic messages. Once he gets to the new world, Duncan begins to see just what the Ramsey Company is up to--at odds with the military and the Native American tribes, Lord Ramsey seeks to turn his portion of the world into another kingdom where he has all the control and power, and sets various factions against one another to make it so. This was a wonderful book, although I can say it won't be for everyone. There are a lot of mystical elements to it, especially featuring Native American spirituality as well as the myths and old religion of the Scottish Highlands intermingled. It's a thick, meaty, literary mystery with lots of lush prose and a tangled plot, many interesting characters. While this is neither my favorite time or place historically, aside from a few slow spots where it seemed to take forever for things to move forward, I really enjoyed this mystery and look forward to the next one in the series. A-
3. DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN by Magdalen Nabb. #1 Marshal Guarnaccia mystery, featuring this Carabinieri stationed in Florence, Italy. It's Christmas Eve, the Marshal has a terrible case of flu, and he's planning to head south to visit family for the holidays, but a murdered Englishman who had retired to live there in Italy takes precedence. A somewhat pudgy man with an eye condition that makes them water profusely in any sort of sunlight, the Marshal actually sleeps through much of the beginning stages of the investigation, so wracked with fever is he, and his subordinates do much of the evidence gathering. The Englishman was apparently well-connected politically too, as Scotland Yard sends two detectives to observe and assist where needed, although they aren't officially there. Eventually though, the Marshal is well enough to put his two cents in and solves the case. This was a slim little book, quickly read, although not really that engaging. It was interesting to see how things looked from the Carabinieri side of Italian police work vs. the regular police that I've read about in a couple of other mystery series, but I couldn't really get interested much in any of the characters in this book and found the mystery rather blah. It was an okay read, but not good enough for me to want to pursue further entries in the series, at least for now. C+
4.HERESY by SJ Parris (AUDIO) Set in 1580's Oxford, England, this novel is told from the point of view of real historical figure Giordano Bruno, an excommunicated Italian monk who was sought by the Inquisition for heresy. Known as a poet, philosopher, magician and scientist, in this book he is recruited by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Ostensibly in Oxford to participate in a philosophical debate with the Master of one of the colleges, Bruno is also keeping his eyes out for a possible nest of Catholics who are still hoping to unseat Elizabeth from the throne. But a series of puzzling murders featuring members of the college leave Bruno stumped, and he must investigate on the sly so as not to arouse further suspicion against himself, already being a foreigner and known for some of his heretical views. Unsure of whom he can trust (and sometimes choosing unwisely) he ventures from one theory to the next while trying to determine if the murders have anything to do with the Catholics' plot against Elizabeth or are something else altogether, often placing himself in grave danger along the way. This was an excellent book, and I'm hoping that it will become a series. The way it ended certainly left it open for another episode. The reader was excellent, using a wide variety of accents and distinct voices that made it easy to tell who was speaking. The historical atmosphere and sense of place was wonderfully evocative and the mystery was interesting as well--although I had my suspicions about the bad guy, there were plenty of plot twists that kept it interesting. Very well done! A.
5. MISS ZUKAS AND THE STROKE OF DEATH by Jo Dereske. #3 Helma Zukas mystery. Helma. a librarian in fictional small-town Washington State, is called by her friend Ruth who finds a dead body in the alley behind her house. Of course it was someone Ruth had seen in a bar earlier the same day, and was heard threatening him because he was bothering her. Ruth doesn't know who he is, and though she's under suspicion, stolidly maintains her innocence. Helma must once again contact Chief Gallant to see if he will leak any information that will help them figure out who did kill the man--a despicable being, from everything they've been able to learn. Helma must also decide whether to join the library's team in the annual Slope to Surf race--a five-part race involving downhill and cross-country skiing, canoeing, running and kayaking. The person doing the canoe part of the race can't participate and Helma does have experience as a paddler--and a gorgeous canoe handmade by her uncle back in Michigan when she was a teenager. But she's really not keen on competition and fears the changes being part of such a group would make in her usually solitary life, which she finds mostly satisfactory. The mystery wasn't much of a surprise, but the ending was! It will be interesting to see if this particular incident is mentioned again sometime in the future. I like Helma and the cast of interesting secondary characters and I find this quite a satisfying series given that it's mostly what you'd call a cozy--although there is a bit of an edge at times and some hidden, unexpected off-color humor too. Looking forward to the next one! A-
6. A PLACE OF SAFETY by Caroline Graham. #6 in the Chief Inspector Barnaby series, which was adapted for TV as the "Midsomer Murder" series. (I still haven't seen any of them!) Barnaby and Sgt. Troy are off to the village of Ferne Bassett, where a local gardener/handyman's body has been found dead, his dog having been discovered earlier in the day, severely beaten and barely alive. While no one in the village liked Charlie Leathers--including his wife--it's uncertain who would dislike him enough to murder him. As we meet each of the players in the village drama--the tormented children's author and his recently-divorced sister, the local (sort of) vicar who (along with his much younger wife) takes in troubled teens and several others--we find that village life isn't as idyllic as is often portrayed. Each person has secrets, resentments, shattered dreams and broken hearts--but how do they tie into Leathers' murder, and the disappearance of young Carlotta Ryan, one of the troubled teens? Leathers was certainly blackmailing someone, but who? And is it related to his murder, or is there something else happening below the surface? This series has quite a few thins that make it somewhat atypical of your usual police mystery--telling the story from the point of view of many of the various characters, for one thing, and setting the scene very firmly before ever introducing the police for another. It does get a bit long-winded sometimes with the emotional descriptions of each person's despair and problems and petty resentments built up over a lifetime, but I suppose those are somewhat necessary to help understand the motivations of the characters. The mystery wasn't much of one, but I do like Tom Barnaby and his family, and even and his sour-puss Sgt. Troy too. The series tends to be kind of hit or miss (there were a couple of earlier books that I barely made it through) but I did enjoy this one quite a lot. Only one more left in the series, and I will look forward to it--then I can feel free to watch the TV series based on these characters. B+
7. STALKED by Brian Freeman. #3 Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial mystery. Thankfully, the story takes place back in Duluth, Stride's hometown, where he's decided to return after a brief stint in Las Vegas. Serena has accompanied him and they are settling into life again on the shores of Lake Superior. Stride's former detective partner Maggie is accused of murdering her husband, and though he must recuse himself from working the case officially, he is convinced of her innocence despite the damning evidence and looks into things in his spare time, thus ticking off the detective in charge of the case--who also happens to be the person Stride bumped out of the head of detectives job when he moved back to Duluth. Meanwhile, Serena, now working as a private investigator, is hired by the local district attorney to uncover a blackmailer. When the two cases begin intersecting, it leads to clues in several cold cases, and some hot new ones--more disappearances and deaths with tendrils curling into several prominent people's lives. To be honest, this wasn't all that much of a thriller, per se. I thought the main solution was fairly obvious, and also thought there was way too much coincidental linking of the cases and too much bizarre stuff going on to be really believable. There was also a lot of what I'd call gratuitous sex stuff that wasn't really germane to the cases. I'm not a prude of any sort, but sex for the sake of it within a mystery is kind of....well, boring. I rolled my eyes a lot. I also thought that Serena, now that she was a private detective, fell into the amateur sleuth trap of doing Really Stupid Things. Frequently. If it weren't for Freeman's atmospheric portrayal of Minnesota, and Duluth in particular, I'm not sure if I would have finished it or not. I do like Stride and the secondary characters too, and because I already have the next couple of books I'm sure I'll read them. I'm just not as enthusiastic as I once was. C+
9. IN DUBLIN'S FAIR CITY by Rhys Bowen. #6 in the Molly Murphy historical series set in early 1900's New York. This episode takes Molly back across the sea to her homeland, having been hired by a rich theatre producer to see if she can trace his long-lost sister. He hadn't known of her existence until his mother confessed on her deathbed that she had left the baby, who had become ill, in the care of a priest. There's little hope of finding the now-fifty-year-old woman, but the man is paying well, and Molly needs the money. She also needs to have some time away from Captain Daniel Sullivan, so she boards the very ship she came across on two years previously and sails for Ireland. Before the boat even leaves, the famous actress Oona Sheehan whom Molly had met briefly at the party where she met the producer, approaches her and asks Molly to take her place for the duration of the voyage so that she can enjoy some much-needed privacy and rest from the constant adulation of her fans. It looks like easy money to Molly--a hundred dollars!--for living the week of the crossing in luxury. But the murder of Oona's maid Rose only a day out from Ireland leaves Molly reeling, and near the top of the suspect list, since Oona herself apparently left the ship moments before it sailed. Once in Ireland, Molly sets about her task and even manages to enjoy being back in her homeland, until her search for MaryAnn Burke gets her entangled in a complicated political plot which puts her seriously in harm's way from several directions. I liked this book better than the last one--since she was out of New York and away from Capt. Sullivan, there was less of the romance and more of the mystery and the setting of Ireland was a nice change, too. I like this author's writing style and I like Molly, too. A.
10. CHARLIE BONE AND THE RED KNIGHT by Jenny Nimmo. (AUDIO) This seems to be the last in the Charlie Bone "Children of the Red King" young adult fantasy series, and it was definitely a winner with all of the loose ends tied up nicely. Charlie's parents are still off on their second honeymoon, his friend Billy Raven has been captured by the evil enchanter Harken and trapped in Badlock, and Charlie must find a way to rescue him--and then discovers that his parents may be in danger as "Dagbert the Drowner's" father is in town, probably to do harm to the Bones by causing a disturbance in the sea. Charlie and his friends are also looking for a box that holds the Red King's true will, which leaves his true heir (believed to be Billy Raven, NOT Ezekiel Bloor!) as the owner of Bloor's Academy as well as much other property and wealth. Charlie and his friends are fighting the evil heirs of the Red King with all their magic and might on several fronts, and are helped in the background by the Red Knight--a mysteries figure that no one knows the identity of. As all the different threads begin coming together towards an exciting conclusion, Charlie and his friends' lives are hanging in the balance. Very well done, enjoyable end to this series. I'm now going to have to seek out more books by this author, as she's got a couple of other series that were written before this one. Highly recommended, but do read these in order, or they won't make much sense. A+
11. THE MIDSUMMER ROSE by Kate Sedley. #13 Roger the Chapman medieval mystery. Mid-summer is approaching and Roger the Chapman is on the road, peddling his wares across rural England. Just a few miles from home, he's crossing the river with a ferryman and realizes he is near an abandoned home that his first wife had told him about--a strange murder had taken place there fifty years before and was haunted. He decides to take a look in before heading home, and ends up witnessing a stabbing, and is then clonked on the head and thrown in the river--rescued only because his leather jerkin kept him afloat so he didn't drown before the ferryman could pull him out. At first people believe he was hallucinating, his overactive mind making up things related to the old murder. But when a body turns up in the river a week later, Roger is vindicated, although it's awhile before he knows who it was who committed that murder. When another man related to the case turns up dead and a friend of Roger's is implicated, he redoubles his efforts to meddle in the law's affairs and do their job for the lazy Sheriff. And what is Timothy Plummer, spymaster to the royal family, doing in town in disguise? Is there another political plot afoot? I really enjoy this series. Roger is one of my favorite fictional historical characters and his well-fleshed secondary characters are great, too. Very atmospheric writing that puts you in the time and place with the descriptions of sounds, smells and attitudes, too. Excellent visit as usual, although these do become a bit predictable after awhile. B+
12. ALICE I HAVE BEEN by Melanie Benjamin. (AUDIO) Her interest captured by a photograph of young Alice Liddell, the 'real' Alice that Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) based his Wonderland books on, dressed as a beggar girl and really looking nothing like the blonde and immaculate Alice who tumbled down a rabbit hole, the author sets out to make up a story about what Alice Liddell's life has been like. An 80-year-old Alice looks back and tells of her childhood growing up in Oxford where her father was Dean of Christ Church College, and she and her sisters were brought up in the strict Victorian fashion of the day. It tells how Dodgson told the story of Alice verbally to the Liddell girls, and how she begged him to write it down, and of the impact it had on her life. She bounces around in time from her 80-year-old self, to a giddy young woman in love, to an older married woman watching her sons go off to war, and back time and again to the young Alice, in awe of and often at odds with the rest of the world. I listened eagerly to the first parts of the book, but found that it did bog down somewhat in the middle and had to take a break from it. Samantha Eggar narrates and does a truly wonderful job of capturing the perfect Victorian tone for Alice's narration and does an excellent job with the other voices as well. I'm glad I did go back to listening as the last few discs once again picked up the pace and finished off a truly wonderful story. Highly recommend this, especially if you are a fan of Lewis Carroll's works. A.
13. MANDARIN PLAID by SJ Rozan. #3 Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series set in New York. This series alternates between Lydia and Bill's point of view, and this is a "Lydia" book. Hired to make a ransom drop--$50,000 for the return of some sketches of exclusive clothing design items for her client Genna Jing's upcoming line called Mandarin Plaid--Lydia is shot at just after the drop takes place and the money disappears. A call to Genna shortly afterwards indicates that it was not the sketch thief who got the money, and Lydia feels she betrayed her client by letting the money be lost. Bill had been watching but chased the shooter (to no avail) and even though the client is now skittish and actually tells them to stop investigating when they apparently get too close to some secret she's harboring, Bill and Lydia carry on, having discovered that a possible suspect in the thefts is now dead. As they get further into the tangled, dangerous web of designer fashion, Lydia and Bill must sort out who stands to gain the most if Mandarin Plaid doesn't hit the runways. There were a few surprising plot twists, but the ultimate solution wasn't much of a surprise to me--which was fine, it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book. On a personal level, Lydia also continues to battle her family's resistance to her profession and her mother's continued attempts to set her up with a "nice Chinese boy" while Lydia struggles with her ever-growing feelings for Bill, whom Lydia's mother refuses to acknowledge and calls "Crooked Face." I enjoy this series a lot, with Lydia caught between the two worlds, never fully at home in either, and yet still being a very strong person doing just what she wishes--except perhaps when it comes to Bill. Looking forward to the next in series. A.
14. THE SINGING SWORD by Jack Whyte. #2 Camulod Chronicles historical Arthurian fantasy. It's 360's A.D. and Publius Varrus, the co-leader of the Colony in the western part of what is now England, faces new challenges as ever-bolder Saxon (and other!) raiders threaten his peaceful home. Together with Caius Britannicus, his brother-in-law, who leads the self-sufficient group with him, he steps up to meet those challenges, which include strengthening their defenses and learning a new way to fight with heavy cavalry. Publius, a blacksmith by trade, begins to attempt to forge a new type of weapon that will serve as sword and spear to soldiers mounted on large warhorses. And always at the back of his mind is the sword he wants to forge, made of the special 'skystone' that fell from the sky in the previous book, the perfect weapon that would be his life's work. Meanwhile, his daughters are growing up and their friend and neighbor to the north, Ullic Pendragon, comes calling asking for an unheard-of allegiance between his Celts and the Roman Britons, forged in a marriage between Veronica, Publius' daughter, and Uric, Ullic's son. Throughout this time, the Colony sets out building a large hill fort to keep their people safe in the face of increasing raids and violence, which is completed and christened Camulod. Spanning several years, this book in the series sets things up for the actual time of Arthur--at the end of this book, Uther Pendragon (Veronica and Uric's son) and Caius Merlyn Brittanicus (son of Ullic's sister Enid and Picus Britannicus, Caius' son) are mere infants, having been born at exactly the same time. Wonderful book, enjoyable story--not all pleasant as there is plenty of violence and death which was appropriate for the times--and with interesting historical detail. I'm looking forward to the next one very much. A.
15. THE WIDOWER'S TWO-STEP by Rick Riordan. (AUDIO) #2 in the Tres Navarre PI series set in Texas. Tres, with his PhD in English, is using his degree in the way many English majors do--by doing something totally unrelated to their studies. He's almost got enough hours logged in with his mentor to apply for an official Private Investigator's license when a person he's staking out is shot right while he's (supposed to be) watching. Julie Kearns was a fiddle player, suspected of stealing the demo tape of an up and coming country singer, Miranda Daniels--and now she's dead. Tres's boss is not happy with him and asks him to think seriously about whether he wants to continue in this line of work. He thinks it's in his blood--his father, Jackson Navarre II, was Sheriff for many years. His mother sets up an (unwanted) interview with a local university where he would be able to teach and use the degree he earned back in California, but he has now been drawn fully into the case of the fiddle player's death, and the intrigue of who really did steal the demo tape. More bodies stack up, Miranda's manager has disappeared off the face of the earth, and Tres isn't such which way to look for suspects. Eventually things get solved--and I admit to being totally surprised by the plot twist at the end. I really like Tres, with his literary references, yet he's very much down to earth and not at all a stuffed shirt. The secondary characters are great too, from his siren mother with her toy boy boyfriend, his wheelchair-bound, pot-smoking brother Garrett, to his friend Ralph, who seems to be somewhat of a gangster with the Mexican mob. The audio version was well-done, narrated by Tom Stechshulte, who did a variety of voices skillfully, such that I was just able to picture the speaker right in my head by listening. Enjoyable second entry and very much looking forward to the next. A.
16. MURDER IN THE RAW by C.S. Challinor. #2 Rex Graves mystery. Rex, a Scottish lawyer, is off to the Caribbean at the behest of the Winslows, owners of the inn where he stayed the Christmas before and solved a murder. It seems one of their guests, a famous French actress, has disappeared into thin air and they'd like Rex to look into things since the gendarmerie on the island don't seem very interested. Rex agrees, and then they mention, "Oh, by the way--this resort is a naturalist resort." (i.e., a nudist colony!) Rex arrives and before long adjusts somewhat to the nudity, and begins questioning the other resort-goers, most of whom are long-time friends of the Winslows who vacation together each year. Sabine Durand left behind a small fragment of blood-soaked fabric hooked on a rock on the beach, the fragment believed to be from a gauzy cover-up she was seen wearing awhile before she disappeared. The gendarmes think a shark got her, but Rex discovers that Sabine wasn't terribly well-liked, and was known to have flings with men--is her much-older husband the culprit as some believe? This was a quick, light read and despite being relatively cozy, I liked it. The writing is sort of stoic and staid, and the characters a bit clichéd, the mystery itself terribly easy to figure out and predict the outcome, but with the occasional wry humor tucked in to make things interesting, it's very readable. The series reminds me somewhat of the tone and writing style of the Miss Zukas series, which is another series I was kind of surprised that I liked. At any rate, I'm planning to read on to the next one. Not a spectacular read but still quite good, nice to read as my 'bedtime' book before drifting off to la-la land. B.
17. THE DRAGONS OF ARCHENFIELD by Edward Marston. #3 Domesday medieval mystery series set across England in the 1080's. Ralph Delchard, a knight, and Gervase Bret, a lawyer, travel across England with their retinue resolving land disputes and investigating claims and set tax rates for the Conqueror. In this instance they are going to Archenfield, near the Welsh border, where resentments among the Welsh still run high against the Norman conquerors as well as the Saxons. A disputed portion of land is sought by two sworn enemies, but the third man who has claim to it is suddenly burned to death, trapped in his own home with a red dragon carved in the earth and colored with cow's blood from the man's own cow. The red dragon is the symbol of Wales, so nearly everyone thinks the murder was done by Welsh insurrectionists, but the man got along peaceably with his neighbors and had no personal squabble with the Welsh, and Ralph and his team feel that the killing had a very personal element to it. Did one of the two men coveting his land kill him so brutally or was it another, more personal, matter? Ralph and Gervase are determined to find out, and during their investigation are threatened by both of the powerful landowners and Gervase is captured and tossed in a dungeon--by whom, he doesn't know. I figured out one of the plot twists ahead of time but the main mystery remained a mystery til near the end. I quite enjoy this series, set in one of my favorite historical time periods. I like both Ralph and Gervase, although they are quite different men--and their secondary characters are also now quite familiar. Wonderful period detail, interesting weaving of real historical events with fictionalized details. Excellent as always, looking forward to the next, although they are getting harder to track down--I think the library will need to cough up the next one. A.
18. BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest. This is a historical fantasy/sci-fi book in a sub-genre called Steampunk--which I'd never heard of until a year or so ago. Set in the era where steam power prevailed, and usually featuring lots of cool gadgets and inventions (a la Jules Verne), and alternate history, this is the first entry in this genre I've read, and I have to admit I loved it! Of course, it had the added bonus of also containing zombies. LOL This one is set in Seattle during the Civil War--although in this version, the war carried on into the 1880's. Sixteen years previously, much of the city--then little more than a cow town--was devastated by a machine invented by one Leviticus Blue, the winning entry in a contest to make a device that would cut through hundreds of feet of ice to get at the gold everyone was sure was under Alaska's soil in the Klondike region. Instead, the machine went wild and tore up Seattle's underground, including the vaults of several banks. The money was never found, nor was Blue's body. The Boneshaker unwittingly tapped into a vein of plague-bearing gas which turned those exposed to it into zombies (or 'rotters' as they're called). A huge wall was built to encase the city center where the Boneshaker dug tunnels, and soon those left inside were either zombies or outcasts seeking to avoid them. Except for the mysterious Dr. Minnericht, who was sort of the Godfather down there "inside." Or so Briar Wilkes--once Briar Blue, widow of Levi had heard. Was the incident an accident as Blue proclaimed, or was he deviously trying to get at the bank's money all along? If Briar knows, she's not telling, and sixteen years later, their son Zeke needs to know. He sets off inside the walls to find answers, and Briar heads in after him. Wonderful adventure story full of great gadgets, a wide variety of interesting characters, and penned with an easy-reading style that makes it hard to put down. It looks like there will be more books in this style/series called The Clockwork Century, although it doesn't look like the next one features these same characters. I will definitely be reading it, though, and looking for more Steampunk too. A+
Current reads: VEIL OF LIES by Jeri Westerson, THE FLANDERS PANEL by Arturo Perez-Reverte, and listening to MISSING MARK by Julie Kramer.
Cheryl
2. BONE RATTLER by Eliot Pattison. #1 Duncan McCallum mystery set in Colonial America, New York state of 1750's. Duncan is a Highland Scot, once training as a doctor, now an indentured servant to the Ramsey Company, plucked from prison (where he was put for supposedly aiding the Highland rebellion) to go to the new world. When the new tutor to the Ramsey children is murdered on board the ship heading to America, Duncan is bullied into taking his place. He does so fearfully, having received a mysterious warning from his friend Adam who died a few days previously, and also a posthumous warning from the tutor himself in the form of cryptic messages. Once he gets to the new world, Duncan begins to see just what the Ramsey Company is up to--at odds with the military and the Native American tribes, Lord Ramsey seeks to turn his portion of the world into another kingdom where he has all the control and power, and sets various factions against one another to make it so. This was a wonderful book, although I can say it won't be for everyone. There are a lot of mystical elements to it, especially featuring Native American spirituality as well as the myths and old religion of the Scottish Highlands intermingled. It's a thick, meaty, literary mystery with lots of lush prose and a tangled plot, many interesting characters. While this is neither my favorite time or place historically, aside from a few slow spots where it seemed to take forever for things to move forward, I really enjoyed this mystery and look forward to the next one in the series. A-
3. DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN by Magdalen Nabb. #1 Marshal Guarnaccia mystery, featuring this Carabinieri stationed in Florence, Italy. It's Christmas Eve, the Marshal has a terrible case of flu, and he's planning to head south to visit family for the holidays, but a murdered Englishman who had retired to live there in Italy takes precedence. A somewhat pudgy man with an eye condition that makes them water profusely in any sort of sunlight, the Marshal actually sleeps through much of the beginning stages of the investigation, so wracked with fever is he, and his subordinates do much of the evidence gathering. The Englishman was apparently well-connected politically too, as Scotland Yard sends two detectives to observe and assist where needed, although they aren't officially there. Eventually though, the Marshal is well enough to put his two cents in and solves the case. This was a slim little book, quickly read, although not really that engaging. It was interesting to see how things looked from the Carabinieri side of Italian police work vs. the regular police that I've read about in a couple of other mystery series, but I couldn't really get interested much in any of the characters in this book and found the mystery rather blah. It was an okay read, but not good enough for me to want to pursue further entries in the series, at least for now. C+
4.HERESY by SJ Parris (AUDIO) Set in 1580's Oxford, England, this novel is told from the point of view of real historical figure Giordano Bruno, an excommunicated Italian monk who was sought by the Inquisition for heresy. Known as a poet, philosopher, magician and scientist, in this book he is recruited by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Ostensibly in Oxford to participate in a philosophical debate with the Master of one of the colleges, Bruno is also keeping his eyes out for a possible nest of Catholics who are still hoping to unseat Elizabeth from the throne. But a series of puzzling murders featuring members of the college leave Bruno stumped, and he must investigate on the sly so as not to arouse further suspicion against himself, already being a foreigner and known for some of his heretical views. Unsure of whom he can trust (and sometimes choosing unwisely) he ventures from one theory to the next while trying to determine if the murders have anything to do with the Catholics' plot against Elizabeth or are something else altogether, often placing himself in grave danger along the way. This was an excellent book, and I'm hoping that it will become a series. The way it ended certainly left it open for another episode. The reader was excellent, using a wide variety of accents and distinct voices that made it easy to tell who was speaking. The historical atmosphere and sense of place was wonderfully evocative and the mystery was interesting as well--although I had my suspicions about the bad guy, there were plenty of plot twists that kept it interesting. Very well done! A.
5. MISS ZUKAS AND THE STROKE OF DEATH by Jo Dereske. #3 Helma Zukas mystery. Helma. a librarian in fictional small-town Washington State, is called by her friend Ruth who finds a dead body in the alley behind her house. Of course it was someone Ruth had seen in a bar earlier the same day, and was heard threatening him because he was bothering her. Ruth doesn't know who he is, and though she's under suspicion, stolidly maintains her innocence. Helma must once again contact Chief Gallant to see if he will leak any information that will help them figure out who did kill the man--a despicable being, from everything they've been able to learn. Helma must also decide whether to join the library's team in the annual Slope to Surf race--a five-part race involving downhill and cross-country skiing, canoeing, running and kayaking. The person doing the canoe part of the race can't participate and Helma does have experience as a paddler--and a gorgeous canoe handmade by her uncle back in Michigan when she was a teenager. But she's really not keen on competition and fears the changes being part of such a group would make in her usually solitary life, which she finds mostly satisfactory. The mystery wasn't much of a surprise, but the ending was! It will be interesting to see if this particular incident is mentioned again sometime in the future. I like Helma and the cast of interesting secondary characters and I find this quite a satisfying series given that it's mostly what you'd call a cozy--although there is a bit of an edge at times and some hidden, unexpected off-color humor too. Looking forward to the next one! A-
6. A PLACE OF SAFETY by Caroline Graham. #6 in the Chief Inspector Barnaby series, which was adapted for TV as the "Midsomer Murder" series. (I still haven't seen any of them!) Barnaby and Sgt. Troy are off to the village of Ferne Bassett, where a local gardener/handyman's body has been found dead, his dog having been discovered earlier in the day, severely beaten and barely alive. While no one in the village liked Charlie Leathers--including his wife--it's uncertain who would dislike him enough to murder him. As we meet each of the players in the village drama--the tormented children's author and his recently-divorced sister, the local (sort of) vicar who (along with his much younger wife) takes in troubled teens and several others--we find that village life isn't as idyllic as is often portrayed. Each person has secrets, resentments, shattered dreams and broken hearts--but how do they tie into Leathers' murder, and the disappearance of young Carlotta Ryan, one of the troubled teens? Leathers was certainly blackmailing someone, but who? And is it related to his murder, or is there something else happening below the surface? This series has quite a few thins that make it somewhat atypical of your usual police mystery--telling the story from the point of view of many of the various characters, for one thing, and setting the scene very firmly before ever introducing the police for another. It does get a bit long-winded sometimes with the emotional descriptions of each person's despair and problems and petty resentments built up over a lifetime, but I suppose those are somewhat necessary to help understand the motivations of the characters. The mystery wasn't much of one, but I do like Tom Barnaby and his family, and even and his sour-puss Sgt. Troy too. The series tends to be kind of hit or miss (there were a couple of earlier books that I barely made it through) but I did enjoy this one quite a lot. Only one more left in the series, and I will look forward to it--then I can feel free to watch the TV series based on these characters. B+
7. STALKED by Brian Freeman. #3 Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial mystery. Thankfully, the story takes place back in Duluth, Stride's hometown, where he's decided to return after a brief stint in Las Vegas. Serena has accompanied him and they are settling into life again on the shores of Lake Superior. Stride's former detective partner Maggie is accused of murdering her husband, and though he must recuse himself from working the case officially, he is convinced of her innocence despite the damning evidence and looks into things in his spare time, thus ticking off the detective in charge of the case--who also happens to be the person Stride bumped out of the head of detectives job when he moved back to Duluth. Meanwhile, Serena, now working as a private investigator, is hired by the local district attorney to uncover a blackmailer. When the two cases begin intersecting, it leads to clues in several cold cases, and some hot new ones--more disappearances and deaths with tendrils curling into several prominent people's lives. To be honest, this wasn't all that much of a thriller, per se. I thought the main solution was fairly obvious, and also thought there was way too much coincidental linking of the cases and too much bizarre stuff going on to be really believable. There was also a lot of what I'd call gratuitous sex stuff that wasn't really germane to the cases. I'm not a prude of any sort, but sex for the sake of it within a mystery is kind of....well, boring. I rolled my eyes a lot. I also thought that Serena, now that she was a private detective, fell into the amateur sleuth trap of doing Really Stupid Things. Frequently. If it weren't for Freeman's atmospheric portrayal of Minnesota, and Duluth in particular, I'm not sure if I would have finished it or not. I do like Stride and the secondary characters too, and because I already have the next couple of books I'm sure I'll read them. I'm just not as enthusiastic as I once was. C+
9. IN DUBLIN'S FAIR CITY by Rhys Bowen. #6 in the Molly Murphy historical series set in early 1900's New York. This episode takes Molly back across the sea to her homeland, having been hired by a rich theatre producer to see if she can trace his long-lost sister. He hadn't known of her existence until his mother confessed on her deathbed that she had left the baby, who had become ill, in the care of a priest. There's little hope of finding the now-fifty-year-old woman, but the man is paying well, and Molly needs the money. She also needs to have some time away from Captain Daniel Sullivan, so she boards the very ship she came across on two years previously and sails for Ireland. Before the boat even leaves, the famous actress Oona Sheehan whom Molly had met briefly at the party where she met the producer, approaches her and asks Molly to take her place for the duration of the voyage so that she can enjoy some much-needed privacy and rest from the constant adulation of her fans. It looks like easy money to Molly--a hundred dollars!--for living the week of the crossing in luxury. But the murder of Oona's maid Rose only a day out from Ireland leaves Molly reeling, and near the top of the suspect list, since Oona herself apparently left the ship moments before it sailed. Once in Ireland, Molly sets about her task and even manages to enjoy being back in her homeland, until her search for MaryAnn Burke gets her entangled in a complicated political plot which puts her seriously in harm's way from several directions. I liked this book better than the last one--since she was out of New York and away from Capt. Sullivan, there was less of the romance and more of the mystery and the setting of Ireland was a nice change, too. I like this author's writing style and I like Molly, too. A.
10. CHARLIE BONE AND THE RED KNIGHT by Jenny Nimmo. (AUDIO) This seems to be the last in the Charlie Bone "Children of the Red King" young adult fantasy series, and it was definitely a winner with all of the loose ends tied up nicely. Charlie's parents are still off on their second honeymoon, his friend Billy Raven has been captured by the evil enchanter Harken and trapped in Badlock, and Charlie must find a way to rescue him--and then discovers that his parents may be in danger as "Dagbert the Drowner's" father is in town, probably to do harm to the Bones by causing a disturbance in the sea. Charlie and his friends are also looking for a box that holds the Red King's true will, which leaves his true heir (believed to be Billy Raven, NOT Ezekiel Bloor!) as the owner of Bloor's Academy as well as much other property and wealth. Charlie and his friends are fighting the evil heirs of the Red King with all their magic and might on several fronts, and are helped in the background by the Red Knight--a mysteries figure that no one knows the identity of. As all the different threads begin coming together towards an exciting conclusion, Charlie and his friends' lives are hanging in the balance. Very well done, enjoyable end to this series. I'm now going to have to seek out more books by this author, as she's got a couple of other series that were written before this one. Highly recommended, but do read these in order, or they won't make much sense. A+
11. THE MIDSUMMER ROSE by Kate Sedley. #13 Roger the Chapman medieval mystery. Mid-summer is approaching and Roger the Chapman is on the road, peddling his wares across rural England. Just a few miles from home, he's crossing the river with a ferryman and realizes he is near an abandoned home that his first wife had told him about--a strange murder had taken place there fifty years before and was haunted. He decides to take a look in before heading home, and ends up witnessing a stabbing, and is then clonked on the head and thrown in the river--rescued only because his leather jerkin kept him afloat so he didn't drown before the ferryman could pull him out. At first people believe he was hallucinating, his overactive mind making up things related to the old murder. But when a body turns up in the river a week later, Roger is vindicated, although it's awhile before he knows who it was who committed that murder. When another man related to the case turns up dead and a friend of Roger's is implicated, he redoubles his efforts to meddle in the law's affairs and do their job for the lazy Sheriff. And what is Timothy Plummer, spymaster to the royal family, doing in town in disguise? Is there another political plot afoot? I really enjoy this series. Roger is one of my favorite fictional historical characters and his well-fleshed secondary characters are great, too. Very atmospheric writing that puts you in the time and place with the descriptions of sounds, smells and attitudes, too. Excellent visit as usual, although these do become a bit predictable after awhile. B+
12. ALICE I HAVE BEEN by Melanie Benjamin. (AUDIO) Her interest captured by a photograph of young Alice Liddell, the 'real' Alice that Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) based his Wonderland books on, dressed as a beggar girl and really looking nothing like the blonde and immaculate Alice who tumbled down a rabbit hole, the author sets out to make up a story about what Alice Liddell's life has been like. An 80-year-old Alice looks back and tells of her childhood growing up in Oxford where her father was Dean of Christ Church College, and she and her sisters were brought up in the strict Victorian fashion of the day. It tells how Dodgson told the story of Alice verbally to the Liddell girls, and how she begged him to write it down, and of the impact it had on her life. She bounces around in time from her 80-year-old self, to a giddy young woman in love, to an older married woman watching her sons go off to war, and back time and again to the young Alice, in awe of and often at odds with the rest of the world. I listened eagerly to the first parts of the book, but found that it did bog down somewhat in the middle and had to take a break from it. Samantha Eggar narrates and does a truly wonderful job of capturing the perfect Victorian tone for Alice's narration and does an excellent job with the other voices as well. I'm glad I did go back to listening as the last few discs once again picked up the pace and finished off a truly wonderful story. Highly recommend this, especially if you are a fan of Lewis Carroll's works. A.
13. MANDARIN PLAID by SJ Rozan. #3 Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series set in New York. This series alternates between Lydia and Bill's point of view, and this is a "Lydia" book. Hired to make a ransom drop--$50,000 for the return of some sketches of exclusive clothing design items for her client Genna Jing's upcoming line called Mandarin Plaid--Lydia is shot at just after the drop takes place and the money disappears. A call to Genna shortly afterwards indicates that it was not the sketch thief who got the money, and Lydia feels she betrayed her client by letting the money be lost. Bill had been watching but chased the shooter (to no avail) and even though the client is now skittish and actually tells them to stop investigating when they apparently get too close to some secret she's harboring, Bill and Lydia carry on, having discovered that a possible suspect in the thefts is now dead. As they get further into the tangled, dangerous web of designer fashion, Lydia and Bill must sort out who stands to gain the most if Mandarin Plaid doesn't hit the runways. There were a few surprising plot twists, but the ultimate solution wasn't much of a surprise to me--which was fine, it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book. On a personal level, Lydia also continues to battle her family's resistance to her profession and her mother's continued attempts to set her up with a "nice Chinese boy" while Lydia struggles with her ever-growing feelings for Bill, whom Lydia's mother refuses to acknowledge and calls "Crooked Face." I enjoy this series a lot, with Lydia caught between the two worlds, never fully at home in either, and yet still being a very strong person doing just what she wishes--except perhaps when it comes to Bill. Looking forward to the next in series. A.
14. THE SINGING SWORD by Jack Whyte. #2 Camulod Chronicles historical Arthurian fantasy. It's 360's A.D. and Publius Varrus, the co-leader of the Colony in the western part of what is now England, faces new challenges as ever-bolder Saxon (and other!) raiders threaten his peaceful home. Together with Caius Britannicus, his brother-in-law, who leads the self-sufficient group with him, he steps up to meet those challenges, which include strengthening their defenses and learning a new way to fight with heavy cavalry. Publius, a blacksmith by trade, begins to attempt to forge a new type of weapon that will serve as sword and spear to soldiers mounted on large warhorses. And always at the back of his mind is the sword he wants to forge, made of the special 'skystone' that fell from the sky in the previous book, the perfect weapon that would be his life's work. Meanwhile, his daughters are growing up and their friend and neighbor to the north, Ullic Pendragon, comes calling asking for an unheard-of allegiance between his Celts and the Roman Britons, forged in a marriage between Veronica, Publius' daughter, and Uric, Ullic's son. Throughout this time, the Colony sets out building a large hill fort to keep their people safe in the face of increasing raids and violence, which is completed and christened Camulod. Spanning several years, this book in the series sets things up for the actual time of Arthur--at the end of this book, Uther Pendragon (Veronica and Uric's son) and Caius Merlyn Brittanicus (son of Ullic's sister Enid and Picus Britannicus, Caius' son) are mere infants, having been born at exactly the same time. Wonderful book, enjoyable story--not all pleasant as there is plenty of violence and death which was appropriate for the times--and with interesting historical detail. I'm looking forward to the next one very much. A.
15. THE WIDOWER'S TWO-STEP by Rick Riordan. (AUDIO) #2 in the Tres Navarre PI series set in Texas. Tres, with his PhD in English, is using his degree in the way many English majors do--by doing something totally unrelated to their studies. He's almost got enough hours logged in with his mentor to apply for an official Private Investigator's license when a person he's staking out is shot right while he's (supposed to be) watching. Julie Kearns was a fiddle player, suspected of stealing the demo tape of an up and coming country singer, Miranda Daniels--and now she's dead. Tres's boss is not happy with him and asks him to think seriously about whether he wants to continue in this line of work. He thinks it's in his blood--his father, Jackson Navarre II, was Sheriff for many years. His mother sets up an (unwanted) interview with a local university where he would be able to teach and use the degree he earned back in California, but he has now been drawn fully into the case of the fiddle player's death, and the intrigue of who really did steal the demo tape. More bodies stack up, Miranda's manager has disappeared off the face of the earth, and Tres isn't such which way to look for suspects. Eventually things get solved--and I admit to being totally surprised by the plot twist at the end. I really like Tres, with his literary references, yet he's very much down to earth and not at all a stuffed shirt. The secondary characters are great too, from his siren mother with her toy boy boyfriend, his wheelchair-bound, pot-smoking brother Garrett, to his friend Ralph, who seems to be somewhat of a gangster with the Mexican mob. The audio version was well-done, narrated by Tom Stechshulte, who did a variety of voices skillfully, such that I was just able to picture the speaker right in my head by listening. Enjoyable second entry and very much looking forward to the next. A.
16. MURDER IN THE RAW by C.S. Challinor. #2 Rex Graves mystery. Rex, a Scottish lawyer, is off to the Caribbean at the behest of the Winslows, owners of the inn where he stayed the Christmas before and solved a murder. It seems one of their guests, a famous French actress, has disappeared into thin air and they'd like Rex to look into things since the gendarmerie on the island don't seem very interested. Rex agrees, and then they mention, "Oh, by the way--this resort is a naturalist resort." (i.e., a nudist colony!) Rex arrives and before long adjusts somewhat to the nudity, and begins questioning the other resort-goers, most of whom are long-time friends of the Winslows who vacation together each year. Sabine Durand left behind a small fragment of blood-soaked fabric hooked on a rock on the beach, the fragment believed to be from a gauzy cover-up she was seen wearing awhile before she disappeared. The gendarmes think a shark got her, but Rex discovers that Sabine wasn't terribly well-liked, and was known to have flings with men--is her much-older husband the culprit as some believe? This was a quick, light read and despite being relatively cozy, I liked it. The writing is sort of stoic and staid, and the characters a bit clichéd, the mystery itself terribly easy to figure out and predict the outcome, but with the occasional wry humor tucked in to make things interesting, it's very readable. The series reminds me somewhat of the tone and writing style of the Miss Zukas series, which is another series I was kind of surprised that I liked. At any rate, I'm planning to read on to the next one. Not a spectacular read but still quite good, nice to read as my 'bedtime' book before drifting off to la-la land. B.
17. THE DRAGONS OF ARCHENFIELD by Edward Marston. #3 Domesday medieval mystery series set across England in the 1080's. Ralph Delchard, a knight, and Gervase Bret, a lawyer, travel across England with their retinue resolving land disputes and investigating claims and set tax rates for the Conqueror. In this instance they are going to Archenfield, near the Welsh border, where resentments among the Welsh still run high against the Norman conquerors as well as the Saxons. A disputed portion of land is sought by two sworn enemies, but the third man who has claim to it is suddenly burned to death, trapped in his own home with a red dragon carved in the earth and colored with cow's blood from the man's own cow. The red dragon is the symbol of Wales, so nearly everyone thinks the murder was done by Welsh insurrectionists, but the man got along peaceably with his neighbors and had no personal squabble with the Welsh, and Ralph and his team feel that the killing had a very personal element to it. Did one of the two men coveting his land kill him so brutally or was it another, more personal, matter? Ralph and Gervase are determined to find out, and during their investigation are threatened by both of the powerful landowners and Gervase is captured and tossed in a dungeon--by whom, he doesn't know. I figured out one of the plot twists ahead of time but the main mystery remained a mystery til near the end. I quite enjoy this series, set in one of my favorite historical time periods. I like both Ralph and Gervase, although they are quite different men--and their secondary characters are also now quite familiar. Wonderful period detail, interesting weaving of real historical events with fictionalized details. Excellent as always, looking forward to the next, although they are getting harder to track down--I think the library will need to cough up the next one. A.
18. BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest. This is a historical fantasy/sci-fi book in a sub-genre called Steampunk--which I'd never heard of until a year or so ago. Set in the era where steam power prevailed, and usually featuring lots of cool gadgets and inventions (a la Jules Verne), and alternate history, this is the first entry in this genre I've read, and I have to admit I loved it! Of course, it had the added bonus of also containing zombies. LOL This one is set in Seattle during the Civil War--although in this version, the war carried on into the 1880's. Sixteen years previously, much of the city--then little more than a cow town--was devastated by a machine invented by one Leviticus Blue, the winning entry in a contest to make a device that would cut through hundreds of feet of ice to get at the gold everyone was sure was under Alaska's soil in the Klondike region. Instead, the machine went wild and tore up Seattle's underground, including the vaults of several banks. The money was never found, nor was Blue's body. The Boneshaker unwittingly tapped into a vein of plague-bearing gas which turned those exposed to it into zombies (or 'rotters' as they're called). A huge wall was built to encase the city center where the Boneshaker dug tunnels, and soon those left inside were either zombies or outcasts seeking to avoid them. Except for the mysterious Dr. Minnericht, who was sort of the Godfather down there "inside." Or so Briar Wilkes--once Briar Blue, widow of Levi had heard. Was the incident an accident as Blue proclaimed, or was he deviously trying to get at the bank's money all along? If Briar knows, she's not telling, and sixteen years later, their son Zeke needs to know. He sets off inside the walls to find answers, and Briar heads in after him. Wonderful adventure story full of great gadgets, a wide variety of interesting characters, and penned with an easy-reading style that makes it hard to put down. It looks like there will be more books in this style/series called The Clockwork Century, although it doesn't look like the next one features these same characters. I will definitely be reading it, though, and looking for more Steampunk too. A+
Current reads: VEIL OF LIES by Jeri Westerson, THE FLANDERS PANEL by Arturo Perez-Reverte, and listening to MISSING MARK by Julie Kramer.
Cheryl
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
June 2010
1. A BAD DAY FOR SORRY by Sophie Littlefield. #1 Stella Hardesty series, featuring a 50-ish widow who owns a sewing shop in small town in rural Missouri. Sounds like a nice new cozy series, right? Um...well....not exactly. Stella has a side business--an unofficial business--of paying men who abuse their wives "visits" to help them realize they need to be nice. She put up with 30 years of abuse herself before (shall we say) embracing widowhood and resolving to help other women who are in a place she once was. Plumpish, graying and prone to mood swings and hot flashes (we have a lot in common! LOL) she put herself on a 'get in shape' regimen, oiled her guns (ok, so we don't have THAT much in common!) and put the word out. She's helped quite a few women over the past couple of years so when Chrissy Shaw approached her, bruises barely fading, asking her to 'talk to' her ex-husband Roy Dean, Stella does--but then finds she needs to make a second visit when he is spotted being nasty to another girl in a public place. Second visits are something that don't happen often. When Chrissy's toddler, Tucker, goes missing after Stella's second visit, she's certain it was Roy Dean who took him...but it's not even his child, so why would he? Stella sets out to find Tucker, but also notifies the Sheriff, whom she of course has a crush on but can't do anything about it given her sideline. What she discovers is that Roy Dean was involved with some pretty nasty people and she's really hoping that Tucker isn't in their hands. But she and Chrissy are determined to find out. I really enjoyed this book, although I can imagine it may stir up a bit of controversy. I've never been a proponent of violence and I hate guns with a passion, but then, I've never been an abused woman. I find it hard to understand women who let themselves stay in those situations for years, so if I had "met" Stella earlier in her life, I would most likely not have related to her very well. I'm thinking that Stella may help me to understand them a bit better. Now that she's seen the light, however, she's determined to help as many other women as she can and she does so with guts, grit, humor and pragmatism that are hard to argue with. The book was written in an easy-to-read style, and while her secondary characters aren't yet firmed up, I expect that will come along with subsequent books. I'm really looking forward to the next in series. A.
2. JUNKYARD DOGS by Craig Johnson. #6 Walt Longmire mystery series set in Durant, Wyoming. Sheriff Longmire, still gimping around with his bad leg, doesn't fancy chasing up and down the road in constant sub-zero temperatures and a series of Rocky Mountain blizzards, but that's just what he has to do. It starts with a report of the elderly owner of the local junkyard, Geo Stewart, having been towed behind his granddaughter-in-law's car with a rope. (It's a long story! LOL) It ends with Geo's death (among others) a couple of days later and the ride in between is the usual series of bizarre events which include the discovery of a severed thumb in a cooler at the junkyard, Walt's deputy Sancho wanting to quit, his undersheriff Vic trying to buy a house, and Walt himself getting his arse bit by one of Geo's big slobbery junkyard dogs. Is the issue land development, secrets from Geo's past, or something totally different that's kicking off this storm within a storm? I'm not telling! I love this series so much, it's hard to keep my hands off the brand new ones when they come out and then I'm left waiting for the next in eager anticipation. The characters are diverse and well-fleshed, the sense of place that Johnson imparts makes you feel as though you are right in the mountains of Wyoming, and the writing style is easy to read, humorous and yet poignant too. The mystery itself? Well, I had the bad guy spotted fairly early, but there were some doubts as the story went on, and I certainly hadn't guessed the backstory or real motive...just my gut telling me "That's the guy!" If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it--but do read them in order. While the book stands on its own merit, it will make more sense if you read them in order. A+
3. IN A STRANGE CITY by Laura Lippman. (AUDIO) #6 Tess Monaghan, PI series set in Baltimore. This book focused on Edgar Allan Poe, who lived in Baltimore, and his museum, memorabilia, and mostly the famous cloaked, anonymous "visitor" who stops by every year with roses and cognac for his grave. An antiques dealer tries to hire Tess into finding who the visitor is and unmasking him because the visitor has something that belongs to him and the only way he can get it is to threaten him with exposure. Tess declines, but is curious and she and boyfriend Crow camp out in frigid weather to watch the yearly ritual. But a second visitor--someone dressed nearly identically--shows up and is shot dead by someone also watching. So was the dead man the intended target, or was the real visitor (who disappeared in the aftermath) the one that was meant to be shot? And what was the motive, in either case? When the dead man is revealed to be a gay man, the press (including an old acquaintance of Tess's) try to tie it in to another hate crime that occurred a few weeks previously. Tess, now fully interested in the case but without a real client, digs around anyway--and then she starts getting roses, cognac and letters in an antique-looking font with clues as to where she needs to go. Tess begins educating herself in Poe lore and is hot on the trail before long. I enjoyed this audio production, although sometimes the reader's (Barbara Rosenblat) voice annoys me. I've gotten used to her, but she often slurs, squeaks and sounds all around as though she's had a couple too many drinks. Still, she does capture Tess's spirit I think, and does a good job with the different voices. I have come to really enjoy this series, and this entry was special as Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite authors and his poem Alone, which is among my top five all time favorites, featured heavily in the mystery. The only detriment was that sometimes this book did get bogged down somewhat in all the Poe history and stuff--if it wasn't something you were interested in, it could have really been a slog, I think. Also, the bad guy was ridiculously easy to spot, and towards the end I wanted to smack Tess because she was being so stupid about not figuring it out. But this happens to me fairly often and it didn't really detract too much from the story. Looking forward to the next! A-
4. A SMALL SACRIFICE by Ellen Hart. #5 Jane Lawless mystery, featuring the lesbian restaurateur from Minneapolis. In this book, Jane's friend Cordelia figures more heavily as it involves a group of theatre friends Cordelia has known since college days. The first part of the book takes place in 1972 to provide the backstory, and then moves to 1994 (when the book was written) at a reunion of the group. Diana, the member who made it the biggest, has bought an old church in a small town in Wisconsin and rehabilitated it into a theatre. The problem is, Diana needs a bit of rehab herself--her lifelong love of alcohol has fried her liver and her physician has given her only a year to live if she doesn't reform. Orson, another of the group, contacts all the former members and proposes that they do an "intervention" with the help of a trained psychiatrist and get her into a rehab program. Cordelia agrees somewhat reluctantly to participate, putting her own rehearsal schedule in her assistant's hands for a few days to attend the grand opening of the theatre, after which the intervention is to occur. When another of the group, Theo, ends up dead before that can happen, Cordelia calls Jane (who knows most of the group members, if only slightly) and given her past sleuthing history, asks her to come up and poke her nose in--it's being called a heart attack, but seems very suspicious. I was a little puzzled by the relationship between these group members--they are touted as the best of friends, but almost all of the relationships within them as well as the group dynamic itself was very negative and stormy with a lot more prickliness and aggravation than friendship displayed. I can't imagine wanting to willingly be part of such a group. Of course a group that made nice and was happy and without conflict wouldn't have made much of a story and there wouldn't be a reason for murder I guess, but all that tension got hard to read about after awhile. The mystery itself couldn't really be figured out until later in the book when the clues started dropping, although I did make some fairly reasonable guesses early on. I like these characters, but this wasn't my favorite in the series--hope that Jane is back at the forefront in the next book. B-
5. THE OUTCAST DOVE by Sharan Newman. #9 Catherine LeVendeur mystery set in medieval France. Actually in this book, Catherine doesn't figure much at all except for the fact that she is related to some of the players--Solomon, her cousin, is the main character in this one. He is traveling around as usual as a merchant, but it's more precarious than usual. Solomon is a Jew, and things are getting more tough and more restrictive for the Jews. Catherine, a Christian, keeps secret the fact that Solomon is her cousin--officially he is her husband Edgar's business partner and nothing more. She isn't ashamed of him but keeps their association minimal for the sake of their family, as there is real danger in even being associated with Jews. Catherine's father used to run the business but decided to renounce the Christianity he had been raised in and go back to his Jewish roots, and is now studying as a scholar. On this trip, Solomon not only encounters his uncle Hubert (Catherine's father) but also his real father, James--a Christian convert who is rabidly attempting to convert other Jews, or to condemn them, and Jehan, a knight who was formerly acquainted with the LeVendeurs in Paris and now hires out as a mercenary/guard. When a young monk is brutally beaten and a teenage Jewish girl disappears, the authorities suspect and question several members of the Jewish community, and Catherine's family's lives are in mortal danger. She knows little of this, as she is back in Paris, heavy with child, with Edgar at her side instead of accompanying Solomon on this trip. It's funny, in the foreward the author mentions Catherine's absence and says she knows those who love the series will miss her--I actually didn't! I like Solomon much better. I love this series in general, but Catherine wears on my nerves after awhile, so it was actually refreshing not to have her in the book. There's only one more in this series, and I plan to finish it off before the end of the year. B+
6. SHOOT TO THRILL by P.J. Tracy. (AUDIO) #5 "Monkeewrench" mystery set in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and featuring MPD homicide detectives Rolseth and Magozzi and the Monkeewrench computer team. Monkeewrench--a very computer saavy bunch who operate somewhat outside the law for the greater good--has been asked by the FBI to assist in tracking down a killer or killers who are posting video of their kills on the web. Their own crack squad can't find anything, so they aren't above seeking outside help when needed.So far, five victims in five cities killed in five different ways make them believe the murders are being committed by different people and are only related by the complex web of secret servers and routing methods that hide their real identity. But when Rolseth and Magozzi get called out to a body found in the Mississippi River (which first appears to be a drunken drag queen who fell in the river and drowned) that ends up as the sixth case, they begin working with Monkeewrench (Grace, Harley, Annie and RoadRunner) and FBI agent John Smith, who has been assigned to the case from Washington. Is there a connection between the murders? Of course there is. I have to admit that I was disappointed in this latest book in one of my favorite mystery series. It started out strong but kind of fizzled out after awhile when the bad guy became rather obvious (at least to me) and there was a lot of ranting from various people (but especially Rolseth) about the evils of the Internet. I also have to admit I wasn't crazy about the narrator for this book. His female voices sounded very fake, there wasn't much differentiation between some of the male voices, and none of the characters sounded even remotely like they were from Minnesota. I have enjoyed the previous books in the series quite a lot, but perhaps in part because I'd been waiting so long for this installment in the series, I felt let down by the cobbled-together plot and the mediocre narration. It was good to visit with old friends, though. B-
7. KUSHIEL'S AVATAR by Jacqueline Carey. Third in the fantasy trilogy featuring Phédre nó Delauney, set in a world much like Renaissance Europe. Phédre is an anguissette, a bearer of pain, marked by two demi-gods, the cruel Kushiel and the loving Naamah. Queen of the Courtesans, she now travels through the equivalent of Europe and the Middle East with her consort Jocelin (a former Casseline monk) and a small and varying band of trusted guides on a two-fold mission. The first is to learn the true Name of God so that it can be spoken on Three Sisters Island to break the curse her childhood friend Hyacinthe bears, leaving him trapped on the Island as Master of the Straits. The second is quite a surprise--she is summoned by Melisande Shahrizai, her arch-enemy (and also her most compelling patron) who betrayed not only Phédre herself but all of Terre d'Ange, seeing many good friends killed. Melisande's son Imriel, having been kept hidden in secret has disappeared and she wants Phédre to find him. This journey leads them into mortal danger and to the dark, hopeless, evil place where she and Jocelin must free Imriel, perhaps at the cost of their own lives. This is a wonderful conclusion to the entire series, in a richly woven world with many outstanding characters. Although this is a door-stopper of a book, it reads much more quickly than you'd think due to the excellent writing style and storytelling ability of the author. I let myself get totally sucked into the realm and was not disappointed with the ending--although the series does continue in the same world with more trilogies, the next one featuring Imriel. I can't say too much without giving away a lot of spoilers, but suffice it to say, this book (and series) is highly recommended, although you really must start at the beginning with Kushiel's Dart. A+
8. AFTERMATH by Peter Robinson. (AUDIO) #12 Chief Inspector Alan Banks series set in Yorkshire, UK. Banks has moved up the ranks temporarily in this book, filling in for his boss who is out on a medical leave, and he's finding he doesn't like those shoes much, sleeping poorly and worrying incessantly. Working on the Chameleon Killer case involving the disappearance and apparent abduction of several blonde teenage girls, Alan has the killer land in his lap when a 999 call from a neighbor reporting a domestic incident leads a patrol car to the home of Terrance and Lucy Payne. PC Janet Taylor nearly beats Terrance to death when he attacks her partner with a machete. Lucy Payne, bruised and dazed is carted off to hospital, but it's what's in the basement that gets Alan involved--the dead body of the most recently-abducted girl, staked out on a mattress, with several others found buried in a side room. But as the case progresses, Banks finds he's not satisfied with things, and wonders if Lucy Payne was complicit in the crimes, or if she was really as ignorant of her husband's activities downstairs as she claims to be. Payne is in a coma and unable to talk, and Lucy has latched onto her doctor's mention of "retrograde amnesia" and "post traumatic stress" and is being less than cooperative, egged on by her neighbor Maggie, who is also an abused wife who escaped from her husband back in Canada. And if Payne is the Chameleon Killer, there's a body missing. Banks' personal life also takes several interesting twists, which I won't comment much on so as not to give away spoilers. I've already read the next book in this series--it was the first Banks book I read, and after doing so decided to go back to the beginning and do it properly--which was also very excellent. I like the reader for this series although his voices of the different characters aren't always really distinct, but certainly pleasant enough and sets a good tone for the book. Enjoyable, although perhaps a bit long-winded with some needless repetition. B+
9. TEN SECOND STAIRCASE by Christopher Fowler. In this fourth installment involving London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, especially the unit's two elderly icons, Arthur Bryant and John May, the team is fighting for their literal lives as higher-ups plot to close the unit down. Unconventional methods and scads of broken rules and laws are frequently employed by Bryant and May, although their younger co-workers tend to do things a little more conventionally. A controversial artist is murdered right in her own display--fetuses floating in a tank of chemicals--and was reported by one of the children visiting the museum to have been thrown into the tank by a man on horseback wearing a historical costume. Obviously a job for the PCU, especially when The Highwayman (as he comes to be called) kills several more times and leaves them obscure clues until the bunch of them working together manage to piece them together and solve the crimes, as well as an old cold case from earlier in their career that's plagued them for many years. I love this group of eccentric detectives! They all work a little differently, Bryant relying frequently on intuitive reasoning and May taking the more logical, deductive approach. The other members of the group, although featured in less detail, support them well. The mysteries are interesting and bizarre, and there are often ties to historical elements that lead you to learning a lot of cool things without realizing you're doing so. A wild, rollicking, unorthodox trek across London and across time with plenty of laughs and some very poignant moments as well--very enjoyable as always. A.
10. SPEAK DAGGERS TO HER by Rosemary Edghill. #1 in the Bast mystery series, featuring Karen Hightower, a Wiccan living in New York whose magical name is Bast. When Miriam, a friend from the Pagan Community is found by her lover dead at home with no apparent injuries, the lover panics because of some run-ins with the law and calls Bast. A quick perusal of Miriam and her home reveals that she had gotten involved with some questionable practitioners--she's wearing a chicken claw necklace and Bast finds a strange, small book that looks similar to a Catholic missal, but it's written with blood. Things get even stranger when Bast checks her answering machine messages later in the day and finds one from Miriam asking for her help. If not for that, Bast might've been willing to let it slide. The police aren't interested in Miriam's death, her sister in the midwest is estranged from her, and how would you convict someone of causing death magically anyway? For that's what Bast believes has happens and sets out to prove it for her own (and Miriam's) peace. Her searches eventually lead her to Ruslan, who heads a group practicing a form of Russian shamanism that involve drugs, submission and black magic. The few people she tells within her own coven and circle of friends at first don't believe her and then are unwilling to help bring justice for Miriam's death. Bast examines her own beliefs and practices as she decides how she will proceed. I really enjoyed this book, first of all because it's realistic (although, written in the mid-90's, a bit dated) and doesn't treat the idea of Witches and Pagans as a "para"normal thing, but as a real system of beliefs and practices--which it is. I like Bast, I liked her grasp on the whole Pagan Community and I loved the sense of place the author imparted--this is New York, yes, but New York seen from a Pagan point of view. Unfortunately there are only three in this series...fortunately, I have the other two and am looking forward to them! A.
11. THE WINGS OF THE SPHINX by Andrea Camilleri #11 Salvo Montalbano mystery series set in and around Montelusa, Sicily, Italy. A young woman's body is found in a dump, shot through the head with a weapon that caused enough damage to make her face unidentifiable. But she does have a small tattoo of a moth on her left shoulderblade that should make identification a little easier. When Montalbano urges his friend at the TV news station to broadcast the picture though, several calls come in that would seem to indicate that there is a whole fleet of young Russian women out there with this same tattoo. Montalbano, naturally, smells a rat and begins looking to determine what connects these women and hopefully to find which of them is dead by process of elimination. Meanwhile, the Commissioner is breathing down his neck about a high-profile kidnapping case in which there has been no ransom demand from the kidnappers and no contact. Montalbano also is (as often is the case) contemplating his relationship with Livia, the woman he's been with off and on for years. They have a long-distance relationship which is probably a good thing or it would have been permanently off long ago! He also is enjoying his usual wonderful drool-worthy fresh Italian delights from the local trattorias and his housekeeper Adelia. Great visit to Sicily as always, now caught up (again) and waiting for the next to be released. I know that this author is quite elderly, but I sure hope he keeps writing these for a good long time! A.
12.THE RED PYRAMID by Rick Riordan (AUDIO) This review applies to the audio CD version. This is the first in a new young adult fantasy series called The Kane Chronicles. Sadie and Carter Kane, brother and sister who have lived apart since early childhood when their mother died, are reunited in London. Twelve-year-old Sadie lives there with her maternal grandparents, and fourteen-year-old Carter lives and travels with his father, Julius Kane, a noted Egyptologist. They generally get to visit Sadie only twice a year, and on Christmas Eve, Carter and his father arrive in London to visit, only to be waylaid by several people wanting Mr. Kane's attention rather insistently. Before they know it, he is attempting to summon a god in the Egyptian display at the British Museum, and he vanishes in a flash of light. Then all heck breaks loose as Egyptian gods and goddesses begin coming to life and fighting their ancient wars and battles all over again. Carter and Sadie find out that one of the men who met with their father is their uncle, and that they are of a royal bloodline, descended from the Pharaohs of Egypt. They also discover why they were separated when their mother died--their magical powers 'do' things when combined together that aren't always pleasant. As they travel (not always in this world) across country, they learn more about their parents, their magical heritage, and about their mother's death, and must step up to the plate to help save the world. Okay. I loved the Percy Jackson series. This one, I'm not so sure about. There were two readers, one male and one female, and neither one of them were what I would call spectacular. Sadie, who lived in London most of her life, has a British accent. Carter has an American accent. Both of them sound fakey and contrived at times, and the reading was done as if done by someone on speed...much of the reading was virtually 'yelled' by the reader, especially the female one. It was a fast-paced and action-packed book, but the frenzied pace of the reading meant I had to listen in small chunks and it very nearly gave me a headache. I'm not sure how much my lesser opinion of the book was due to the reader vs. the book itself. The story was interesting, but honestly I was not as enthralled as I was with the Percy Jackson books. These two characters just don't strike a chord with me as much, I guess. It was good, but I think if I continue on, I will read in print rather than listening. C+
13. THE POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by Edgar Allan Poe This was a re-read for me of an illustrated version of the author's poetry works, which contain two of my favorite all-time poems, The Raven and especially Alone. How do you critique poetry? I dunno. It's not my favored form of communication, but when I like it, I really like it. And I do I like Poe's stuff, although I'm not always in the mood for it, especially the overly dramatic, romanticized parts. Still, I recommend reading at least a few of his poems if you've never done so. B+
14.U IS FOR UNDERTOW by Sue Grafton. #21 in the Kinsey Millhone "alphabet" mysteries. Kinsey is approached by a young man who thinks he may have seen something related to a twenty-year-old kidnapping case. He went to the police and Kinsey's detective buddy referred him to her. Michael Sutton was only six when he saw two guys who he thought were dressed as pirates burying something in the backyard of the neighbor to a friend his mother had sent him to visit. He's sure this was around the same time a six year old girl was kidnapped, and reading about it in the local paper triggered the memory. Kinsey investigates, and the case intrigues her--much of what Sutton reports checks out and is plausible, until they find the spot and a dead dog's body is discovered there, not a little girl's. Case closed. Or is it? Things continue to niggle in Kinsey's mind and she keeps checking things out, only to discover that Sutton may not be a reliable witness at all, given his history. She feels taken in but still can't help believe the core of his story and won't put it totally aside just yet. Kinsey also has to deal with some personal issues relating to her family--the family she didn't even know she had until a few years previously, most notably her grandmother whom she'd always believed was indifferent to her and now finds out this may not be the case. This is one of the few 'bestseller' type series I'm into, and that I've stayed caught up with. Some are better than others, but Kinsey has remained one of my favorite fictional characters of all time over the years, stuck as she is in the 1980's before things were made easy for private eyes by computers, electronic records and instant communication. Kinsey has to do things the hard way. I liked this entry in the series a lot, with an intriguing story with a couple of interesting twists, although the story was fairly plainly spelled out as it was told from the point of view of several of the players in the drama. Enjoyable! A.
Current Reads: PRETTY IN INK by Karen E. Olson, BONE RATTLER by Eliot Pattison and listening to HERESY by SJ Parris.
Cheryl
2. JUNKYARD DOGS by Craig Johnson. #6 Walt Longmire mystery series set in Durant, Wyoming. Sheriff Longmire, still gimping around with his bad leg, doesn't fancy chasing up and down the road in constant sub-zero temperatures and a series of Rocky Mountain blizzards, but that's just what he has to do. It starts with a report of the elderly owner of the local junkyard, Geo Stewart, having been towed behind his granddaughter-in-law's car with a rope. (It's a long story! LOL) It ends with Geo's death (among others) a couple of days later and the ride in between is the usual series of bizarre events which include the discovery of a severed thumb in a cooler at the junkyard, Walt's deputy Sancho wanting to quit, his undersheriff Vic trying to buy a house, and Walt himself getting his arse bit by one of Geo's big slobbery junkyard dogs. Is the issue land development, secrets from Geo's past, or something totally different that's kicking off this storm within a storm? I'm not telling! I love this series so much, it's hard to keep my hands off the brand new ones when they come out and then I'm left waiting for the next in eager anticipation. The characters are diverse and well-fleshed, the sense of place that Johnson imparts makes you feel as though you are right in the mountains of Wyoming, and the writing style is easy to read, humorous and yet poignant too. The mystery itself? Well, I had the bad guy spotted fairly early, but there were some doubts as the story went on, and I certainly hadn't guessed the backstory or real motive...just my gut telling me "That's the guy!" If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it--but do read them in order. While the book stands on its own merit, it will make more sense if you read them in order. A+
3. IN A STRANGE CITY by Laura Lippman. (AUDIO) #6 Tess Monaghan, PI series set in Baltimore. This book focused on Edgar Allan Poe, who lived in Baltimore, and his museum, memorabilia, and mostly the famous cloaked, anonymous "visitor" who stops by every year with roses and cognac for his grave. An antiques dealer tries to hire Tess into finding who the visitor is and unmasking him because the visitor has something that belongs to him and the only way he can get it is to threaten him with exposure. Tess declines, but is curious and she and boyfriend Crow camp out in frigid weather to watch the yearly ritual. But a second visitor--someone dressed nearly identically--shows up and is shot dead by someone also watching. So was the dead man the intended target, or was the real visitor (who disappeared in the aftermath) the one that was meant to be shot? And what was the motive, in either case? When the dead man is revealed to be a gay man, the press (including an old acquaintance of Tess's) try to tie it in to another hate crime that occurred a few weeks previously. Tess, now fully interested in the case but without a real client, digs around anyway--and then she starts getting roses, cognac and letters in an antique-looking font with clues as to where she needs to go. Tess begins educating herself in Poe lore and is hot on the trail before long. I enjoyed this audio production, although sometimes the reader's (Barbara Rosenblat) voice annoys me. I've gotten used to her, but she often slurs, squeaks and sounds all around as though she's had a couple too many drinks. Still, she does capture Tess's spirit I think, and does a good job with the different voices. I have come to really enjoy this series, and this entry was special as Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite authors and his poem Alone, which is among my top five all time favorites, featured heavily in the mystery. The only detriment was that sometimes this book did get bogged down somewhat in all the Poe history and stuff--if it wasn't something you were interested in, it could have really been a slog, I think. Also, the bad guy was ridiculously easy to spot, and towards the end I wanted to smack Tess because she was being so stupid about not figuring it out. But this happens to me fairly often and it didn't really detract too much from the story. Looking forward to the next! A-
4. A SMALL SACRIFICE by Ellen Hart. #5 Jane Lawless mystery, featuring the lesbian restaurateur from Minneapolis. In this book, Jane's friend Cordelia figures more heavily as it involves a group of theatre friends Cordelia has known since college days. The first part of the book takes place in 1972 to provide the backstory, and then moves to 1994 (when the book was written) at a reunion of the group. Diana, the member who made it the biggest, has bought an old church in a small town in Wisconsin and rehabilitated it into a theatre. The problem is, Diana needs a bit of rehab herself--her lifelong love of alcohol has fried her liver and her physician has given her only a year to live if she doesn't reform. Orson, another of the group, contacts all the former members and proposes that they do an "intervention" with the help of a trained psychiatrist and get her into a rehab program. Cordelia agrees somewhat reluctantly to participate, putting her own rehearsal schedule in her assistant's hands for a few days to attend the grand opening of the theatre, after which the intervention is to occur. When another of the group, Theo, ends up dead before that can happen, Cordelia calls Jane (who knows most of the group members, if only slightly) and given her past sleuthing history, asks her to come up and poke her nose in--it's being called a heart attack, but seems very suspicious. I was a little puzzled by the relationship between these group members--they are touted as the best of friends, but almost all of the relationships within them as well as the group dynamic itself was very negative and stormy with a lot more prickliness and aggravation than friendship displayed. I can't imagine wanting to willingly be part of such a group. Of course a group that made nice and was happy and without conflict wouldn't have made much of a story and there wouldn't be a reason for murder I guess, but all that tension got hard to read about after awhile. The mystery itself couldn't really be figured out until later in the book when the clues started dropping, although I did make some fairly reasonable guesses early on. I like these characters, but this wasn't my favorite in the series--hope that Jane is back at the forefront in the next book. B-
5. THE OUTCAST DOVE by Sharan Newman. #9 Catherine LeVendeur mystery set in medieval France. Actually in this book, Catherine doesn't figure much at all except for the fact that she is related to some of the players--Solomon, her cousin, is the main character in this one. He is traveling around as usual as a merchant, but it's more precarious than usual. Solomon is a Jew, and things are getting more tough and more restrictive for the Jews. Catherine, a Christian, keeps secret the fact that Solomon is her cousin--officially he is her husband Edgar's business partner and nothing more. She isn't ashamed of him but keeps their association minimal for the sake of their family, as there is real danger in even being associated with Jews. Catherine's father used to run the business but decided to renounce the Christianity he had been raised in and go back to his Jewish roots, and is now studying as a scholar. On this trip, Solomon not only encounters his uncle Hubert (Catherine's father) but also his real father, James--a Christian convert who is rabidly attempting to convert other Jews, or to condemn them, and Jehan, a knight who was formerly acquainted with the LeVendeurs in Paris and now hires out as a mercenary/guard. When a young monk is brutally beaten and a teenage Jewish girl disappears, the authorities suspect and question several members of the Jewish community, and Catherine's family's lives are in mortal danger. She knows little of this, as she is back in Paris, heavy with child, with Edgar at her side instead of accompanying Solomon on this trip. It's funny, in the foreward the author mentions Catherine's absence and says she knows those who love the series will miss her--I actually didn't! I like Solomon much better. I love this series in general, but Catherine wears on my nerves after awhile, so it was actually refreshing not to have her in the book. There's only one more in this series, and I plan to finish it off before the end of the year. B+
6. SHOOT TO THRILL by P.J. Tracy. (AUDIO) #5 "Monkeewrench" mystery set in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and featuring MPD homicide detectives Rolseth and Magozzi and the Monkeewrench computer team. Monkeewrench--a very computer saavy bunch who operate somewhat outside the law for the greater good--has been asked by the FBI to assist in tracking down a killer or killers who are posting video of their kills on the web. Their own crack squad can't find anything, so they aren't above seeking outside help when needed.So far, five victims in five cities killed in five different ways make them believe the murders are being committed by different people and are only related by the complex web of secret servers and routing methods that hide their real identity. But when Rolseth and Magozzi get called out to a body found in the Mississippi River (which first appears to be a drunken drag queen who fell in the river and drowned) that ends up as the sixth case, they begin working with Monkeewrench (Grace, Harley, Annie and RoadRunner) and FBI agent John Smith, who has been assigned to the case from Washington. Is there a connection between the murders? Of course there is. I have to admit that I was disappointed in this latest book in one of my favorite mystery series. It started out strong but kind of fizzled out after awhile when the bad guy became rather obvious (at least to me) and there was a lot of ranting from various people (but especially Rolseth) about the evils of the Internet. I also have to admit I wasn't crazy about the narrator for this book. His female voices sounded very fake, there wasn't much differentiation between some of the male voices, and none of the characters sounded even remotely like they were from Minnesota. I have enjoyed the previous books in the series quite a lot, but perhaps in part because I'd been waiting so long for this installment in the series, I felt let down by the cobbled-together plot and the mediocre narration. It was good to visit with old friends, though. B-
7. KUSHIEL'S AVATAR by Jacqueline Carey. Third in the fantasy trilogy featuring Phédre nó Delauney, set in a world much like Renaissance Europe. Phédre is an anguissette, a bearer of pain, marked by two demi-gods, the cruel Kushiel and the loving Naamah. Queen of the Courtesans, she now travels through the equivalent of Europe and the Middle East with her consort Jocelin (a former Casseline monk) and a small and varying band of trusted guides on a two-fold mission. The first is to learn the true Name of God so that it can be spoken on Three Sisters Island to break the curse her childhood friend Hyacinthe bears, leaving him trapped on the Island as Master of the Straits. The second is quite a surprise--she is summoned by Melisande Shahrizai, her arch-enemy (and also her most compelling patron) who betrayed not only Phédre herself but all of Terre d'Ange, seeing many good friends killed. Melisande's son Imriel, having been kept hidden in secret has disappeared and she wants Phédre to find him. This journey leads them into mortal danger and to the dark, hopeless, evil place where she and Jocelin must free Imriel, perhaps at the cost of their own lives. This is a wonderful conclusion to the entire series, in a richly woven world with many outstanding characters. Although this is a door-stopper of a book, it reads much more quickly than you'd think due to the excellent writing style and storytelling ability of the author. I let myself get totally sucked into the realm and was not disappointed with the ending--although the series does continue in the same world with more trilogies, the next one featuring Imriel. I can't say too much without giving away a lot of spoilers, but suffice it to say, this book (and series) is highly recommended, although you really must start at the beginning with Kushiel's Dart. A+
8. AFTERMATH by Peter Robinson. (AUDIO) #12 Chief Inspector Alan Banks series set in Yorkshire, UK. Banks has moved up the ranks temporarily in this book, filling in for his boss who is out on a medical leave, and he's finding he doesn't like those shoes much, sleeping poorly and worrying incessantly. Working on the Chameleon Killer case involving the disappearance and apparent abduction of several blonde teenage girls, Alan has the killer land in his lap when a 999 call from a neighbor reporting a domestic incident leads a patrol car to the home of Terrance and Lucy Payne. PC Janet Taylor nearly beats Terrance to death when he attacks her partner with a machete. Lucy Payne, bruised and dazed is carted off to hospital, but it's what's in the basement that gets Alan involved--the dead body of the most recently-abducted girl, staked out on a mattress, with several others found buried in a side room. But as the case progresses, Banks finds he's not satisfied with things, and wonders if Lucy Payne was complicit in the crimes, or if she was really as ignorant of her husband's activities downstairs as she claims to be. Payne is in a coma and unable to talk, and Lucy has latched onto her doctor's mention of "retrograde amnesia" and "post traumatic stress" and is being less than cooperative, egged on by her neighbor Maggie, who is also an abused wife who escaped from her husband back in Canada. And if Payne is the Chameleon Killer, there's a body missing. Banks' personal life also takes several interesting twists, which I won't comment much on so as not to give away spoilers. I've already read the next book in this series--it was the first Banks book I read, and after doing so decided to go back to the beginning and do it properly--which was also very excellent. I like the reader for this series although his voices of the different characters aren't always really distinct, but certainly pleasant enough and sets a good tone for the book. Enjoyable, although perhaps a bit long-winded with some needless repetition. B+
9. TEN SECOND STAIRCASE by Christopher Fowler. In this fourth installment involving London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, especially the unit's two elderly icons, Arthur Bryant and John May, the team is fighting for their literal lives as higher-ups plot to close the unit down. Unconventional methods and scads of broken rules and laws are frequently employed by Bryant and May, although their younger co-workers tend to do things a little more conventionally. A controversial artist is murdered right in her own display--fetuses floating in a tank of chemicals--and was reported by one of the children visiting the museum to have been thrown into the tank by a man on horseback wearing a historical costume. Obviously a job for the PCU, especially when The Highwayman (as he comes to be called) kills several more times and leaves them obscure clues until the bunch of them working together manage to piece them together and solve the crimes, as well as an old cold case from earlier in their career that's plagued them for many years. I love this group of eccentric detectives! They all work a little differently, Bryant relying frequently on intuitive reasoning and May taking the more logical, deductive approach. The other members of the group, although featured in less detail, support them well. The mysteries are interesting and bizarre, and there are often ties to historical elements that lead you to learning a lot of cool things without realizing you're doing so. A wild, rollicking, unorthodox trek across London and across time with plenty of laughs and some very poignant moments as well--very enjoyable as always. A.
10. SPEAK DAGGERS TO HER by Rosemary Edghill. #1 in the Bast mystery series, featuring Karen Hightower, a Wiccan living in New York whose magical name is Bast. When Miriam, a friend from the Pagan Community is found by her lover dead at home with no apparent injuries, the lover panics because of some run-ins with the law and calls Bast. A quick perusal of Miriam and her home reveals that she had gotten involved with some questionable practitioners--she's wearing a chicken claw necklace and Bast finds a strange, small book that looks similar to a Catholic missal, but it's written with blood. Things get even stranger when Bast checks her answering machine messages later in the day and finds one from Miriam asking for her help. If not for that, Bast might've been willing to let it slide. The police aren't interested in Miriam's death, her sister in the midwest is estranged from her, and how would you convict someone of causing death magically anyway? For that's what Bast believes has happens and sets out to prove it for her own (and Miriam's) peace. Her searches eventually lead her to Ruslan, who heads a group practicing a form of Russian shamanism that involve drugs, submission and black magic. The few people she tells within her own coven and circle of friends at first don't believe her and then are unwilling to help bring justice for Miriam's death. Bast examines her own beliefs and practices as she decides how she will proceed. I really enjoyed this book, first of all because it's realistic (although, written in the mid-90's, a bit dated) and doesn't treat the idea of Witches and Pagans as a "para"normal thing, but as a real system of beliefs and practices--which it is. I like Bast, I liked her grasp on the whole Pagan Community and I loved the sense of place the author imparted--this is New York, yes, but New York seen from a Pagan point of view. Unfortunately there are only three in this series...fortunately, I have the other two and am looking forward to them! A.
11. THE WINGS OF THE SPHINX by Andrea Camilleri #11 Salvo Montalbano mystery series set in and around Montelusa, Sicily, Italy. A young woman's body is found in a dump, shot through the head with a weapon that caused enough damage to make her face unidentifiable. But she does have a small tattoo of a moth on her left shoulderblade that should make identification a little easier. When Montalbano urges his friend at the TV news station to broadcast the picture though, several calls come in that would seem to indicate that there is a whole fleet of young Russian women out there with this same tattoo. Montalbano, naturally, smells a rat and begins looking to determine what connects these women and hopefully to find which of them is dead by process of elimination. Meanwhile, the Commissioner is breathing down his neck about a high-profile kidnapping case in which there has been no ransom demand from the kidnappers and no contact. Montalbano also is (as often is the case) contemplating his relationship with Livia, the woman he's been with off and on for years. They have a long-distance relationship which is probably a good thing or it would have been permanently off long ago! He also is enjoying his usual wonderful drool-worthy fresh Italian delights from the local trattorias and his housekeeper Adelia. Great visit to Sicily as always, now caught up (again) and waiting for the next to be released. I know that this author is quite elderly, but I sure hope he keeps writing these for a good long time! A.
12.THE RED PYRAMID by Rick Riordan (AUDIO) This review applies to the audio CD version. This is the first in a new young adult fantasy series called The Kane Chronicles. Sadie and Carter Kane, brother and sister who have lived apart since early childhood when their mother died, are reunited in London. Twelve-year-old Sadie lives there with her maternal grandparents, and fourteen-year-old Carter lives and travels with his father, Julius Kane, a noted Egyptologist. They generally get to visit Sadie only twice a year, and on Christmas Eve, Carter and his father arrive in London to visit, only to be waylaid by several people wanting Mr. Kane's attention rather insistently. Before they know it, he is attempting to summon a god in the Egyptian display at the British Museum, and he vanishes in a flash of light. Then all heck breaks loose as Egyptian gods and goddesses begin coming to life and fighting their ancient wars and battles all over again. Carter and Sadie find out that one of the men who met with their father is their uncle, and that they are of a royal bloodline, descended from the Pharaohs of Egypt. They also discover why they were separated when their mother died--their magical powers 'do' things when combined together that aren't always pleasant. As they travel (not always in this world) across country, they learn more about their parents, their magical heritage, and about their mother's death, and must step up to the plate to help save the world. Okay. I loved the Percy Jackson series. This one, I'm not so sure about. There were two readers, one male and one female, and neither one of them were what I would call spectacular. Sadie, who lived in London most of her life, has a British accent. Carter has an American accent. Both of them sound fakey and contrived at times, and the reading was done as if done by someone on speed...much of the reading was virtually 'yelled' by the reader, especially the female one. It was a fast-paced and action-packed book, but the frenzied pace of the reading meant I had to listen in small chunks and it very nearly gave me a headache. I'm not sure how much my lesser opinion of the book was due to the reader vs. the book itself. The story was interesting, but honestly I was not as enthralled as I was with the Percy Jackson books. These two characters just don't strike a chord with me as much, I guess. It was good, but I think if I continue on, I will read in print rather than listening. C+
13. THE POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by Edgar Allan Poe This was a re-read for me of an illustrated version of the author's poetry works, which contain two of my favorite all-time poems, The Raven and especially Alone. How do you critique poetry? I dunno. It's not my favored form of communication, but when I like it, I really like it. And I do I like Poe's stuff, although I'm not always in the mood for it, especially the overly dramatic, romanticized parts. Still, I recommend reading at least a few of his poems if you've never done so. B+
14.U IS FOR UNDERTOW by Sue Grafton. #21 in the Kinsey Millhone "alphabet" mysteries. Kinsey is approached by a young man who thinks he may have seen something related to a twenty-year-old kidnapping case. He went to the police and Kinsey's detective buddy referred him to her. Michael Sutton was only six when he saw two guys who he thought were dressed as pirates burying something in the backyard of the neighbor to a friend his mother had sent him to visit. He's sure this was around the same time a six year old girl was kidnapped, and reading about it in the local paper triggered the memory. Kinsey investigates, and the case intrigues her--much of what Sutton reports checks out and is plausible, until they find the spot and a dead dog's body is discovered there, not a little girl's. Case closed. Or is it? Things continue to niggle in Kinsey's mind and she keeps checking things out, only to discover that Sutton may not be a reliable witness at all, given his history. She feels taken in but still can't help believe the core of his story and won't put it totally aside just yet. Kinsey also has to deal with some personal issues relating to her family--the family she didn't even know she had until a few years previously, most notably her grandmother whom she'd always believed was indifferent to her and now finds out this may not be the case. This is one of the few 'bestseller' type series I'm into, and that I've stayed caught up with. Some are better than others, but Kinsey has remained one of my favorite fictional characters of all time over the years, stuck as she is in the 1980's before things were made easy for private eyes by computers, electronic records and instant communication. Kinsey has to do things the hard way. I liked this entry in the series a lot, with an intriguing story with a couple of interesting twists, although the story was fairly plainly spelled out as it was told from the point of view of several of the players in the drama. Enjoyable! A.
Current Reads: PRETTY IN INK by Karen E. Olson, BONE RATTLER by Eliot Pattison and listening to HERESY by SJ Parris.
Cheryl
Sunday, May 9, 2010
May 2010
1. THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS by Terry Pratchett. First in the Discworld Children's book series. Pratchett's take on the Pied Piper story. Every city has rats, especially in Discworld. But the city of Bad Blintz is special--they are so overrun with rats that they employ not one but two rat catchers and even at that are nearly starving because the rats are eating all the food. Enter Maurice--a talking tabby cat--and his thinking, talking rats with interesting names like Dangerous Beans, Peaches, Darktan and Nourishing. (They took their names from labels on tins and bottles in the trash, primarily.) With them is Keith, a rather nondescript lad who plays the pipe. Maurice's scam is to sneak his educated rodents into town, have them show themselves at inopportune moments, widdle on some foodstuffs, and then have Keith pipe them out of town. Voila--instant reward! They figure Bad Blintz is ripe for the picking with an already bad infestation. Problem is, Dangerous Beans and the others can find NO rats when they check out the town's sewers and dark places. Not a one! Turns out the rat catchers have a scheme of their own going, which Maurice, the rats, Keith and the Mayor's strange daughter Malicia set out to thwart. I really enjoyed this first Discworld book written more for young readers. The regular lot of characters aren't really mentioned, and the story could've taken place in any town, Discworld or otherwise. I would say this isn't for very young children as there is some violence and death...but then I guess, there is in pretty much every fairy tale, isn't there? Pratchett's usual wacky sense of humor is in evidence, albeit with less footnotes. It may be Discworld Lite, but it's not to be missed! B+
2. MOONLIGHT DOWNS by Adrian Hyland. Set in the outback of Australia, this is the first in a series featuring Emily Tempest, the 26-year-old daughter of a whitefeller miner and an Aboriginal woman. Emily returns to the outback after several years meandering around, trying various university courses, and still not sure what to do with her life. Since her mother died young, she spent much of her time growing up in Moonlight Downs, the blackfeller settlement in the outback, but she doesn't feel totally a part of either the white or the black community. Returning now, she almost feels like she's home, but the feeling is shattered when the elderly head of the settlement who was like a second father to her, is brutally murdered just a couple of days later. Emily is crushed as the community scatters, most back to the town of Bluebush, a scrubby settlement full of rough-living folks with no redeeming qualities. But there Emily ends up too, working in a menial job and living in a tiny, squalid apartment, as she has basically nowhere else to go. Lincoln's daughter Hazel, Emily's best friend, has gone off to do her grieving the aboriginal way. Emily puzzles over who could have killed Lincoln--was it Blakie, the wild, crazed witchdoctor who lived in the bush? Earl Marsh, a cattle baron set on buying up neighboring property? Or someone else? Emily feels like the police aren't too interested in finding the truth so begins poking her nose in and gets herself into some sticky situations along the way. All I can say is....WOW! What an awesome book! The author did such a great job with Emily's character, the cultural immersion, and the outback itself as a main character in the story. The racial tensions and societal norms were treated matter-of-factly and neither glossed over nor played up--they just WERE. I learned so much, and had no idea at the time that I was being educated--the book was a total pleasure read! I have to admit that I did spot the bad guy as soon as he was introduced, at least was pretty sure it was him, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment of the book. I am so glad I've got the second in the series on the way to me, as I know it won't be long before I get to it. If this isn't among my top ten of the year, I'll eat my shorts. :D A++
3. WHEN THE DEVIL HOLDS THE CANDLE by Karin Fossum. #3 Inspector Conrad Sejer series set in Norway. This book seems to be more about the lives of several people involved in various crimes than with the police procedures or crime detection. Andreas, an 18 year old, is reported missing by his frantic mother. Determined to convince the police that he is a 'good boy,' which seems to hold true on the surface--he had a steady job, never gave his mother trouble, had no police record--she refers them to her friend Irma as a character reference for Andreas. Unknown to his mother, Irma has been a victim of Andreas and his friend Zipp. We see a different story told from the point of view of Zipp, an indolent unemployed youth who is Andreas' best friend. He and Andreas would drive or wander around the town committing petty theft and burglary, looking for easy marks to steal a handbag from and get some beer money. It's also told from the point of view of Irma, an aging woman who seems virtually alone in the world and is definitely mentally ill in some way. I enjoy these series of mysteries, but they're always a little odd, skittering here and there from varying points of view such that it's sometimes hard to get a coherent picture of things. I also don't feel like I have a good grasp on who Sejer is, because there isn't all that much time spent on his police work or his personal life--bits and pieces here and there is all. It's an interesting book, and I will continue to read on in the series, but I came away from this one feeling somehow let down and dissatisfied--like I knew I was supposed to be more horrified than I was, or something. Hard to put a finger on it, but not as enjoyable to me as her previous books were. B.
4. MERCY FALLS by William Kent Krueger. (AUDIO) #5 Cork O'Connor mystery set in northern Minnesota (and partially in Chicago in this book.) Cork, sheriff of Tamarack County, has two investigations to divide his time between. First, a sniper shoots one of his deputies--and the bullet was most likely meant for him. Although Marcia Dodds will recover, Cork feels a certain amount of guilt and wants to find out the reason for the attempted hit and who's responsible. But he also has to investigate the brutal death of Eddie Jacoby, a man from Chicago who is in town on business. It turns out that Eddie is the half-brother of Ben Jacoby, an old flame of Jo's (Cork's wife) from college, part of a rich and powerful family who even fly in a 'security expert' to help. The threats against Cork continue, so he sends Jo and the kids to her sister Rose's in Chicago. Through a long and twisty tale, Cork, his team, Dina Willner (the security expert) chase clues and false trails in an attempt to find the bad guy. It has been several years since I read the previous book in this series. I've tried hard to like it because the author is local and I used to live in the area the books take place in. The books have interesting stories and I do love the local flavor. Cork and his secondary characters are likable and interesting. And yet some niggling thing about these books always annoys the heck out of me. I still can't figure out what exactly bugs me, but it wasn't any different this time--even listening to the book in audio instead of reading in print didn't change things. Part of it is the relationship between Cork and Jo, his wife. Something is just "off" there. Also, the plots seem kind of contrived. In this book--as with previous books in the series--the bad guy was very obvious to me from the time they entered the picture. A whole slew of red herrings didn't change my mind about that and I kept wanting to slap Cork upside the head for missing big clues. The plot seemed really stretched with way too many coincidences popping up. And I absolutely HATE it when an author doesn't wrap up the story in the book at hand. Yes, there has to be some continuity from one book to the next, perhaps leaving questions about what happens to some aspect of the main character's personal life--but to totally omit a resolution to the crimes committed during the book, even if the 'answer' was known to a couple of people is just deplorable, IMO. Here's the deal: this cliffhanger, more than wanting me to go out and read the next book, makes me realize that I don't really care one way or another what happens. And whatever the mysterious "it" is that bugs me about this series, I'm going to listen to it and just stop right here. C-
5. THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET by Matt Beynon Rees. #3 Omar Yussef Sirhan mystery set in Palestine, this one in the city of Nablus where Omar and his family have come for his friend Sami's wedding. Before that happens though, Sami, a police officer, gets tangled up in an investigation regarding a murdered Samaritan--a small religious sect related to Judaism with a temple on Mt. Gerishim above the city. When Sami is warned off the investigation by one of the powerful political sects, Omar takes up the slack and investigates with his friend Khamis Zeydan, Bethlehem's police chief (also in town for the wedding) and discover that Khamis has a personal tie to the investigation. Was the young man's death related to the recent theft of an ancient, sacred scroll or was it motivated by something personal or political. In Palenstine, it seems that politics figure heavily in every investigation and the police are often in the pay of various political sects who then direct how the investigation should go. Omar Yussef is outraged by this and wants to get at the truth--which often (and in this case also) leads to him putting himself in harm's way. Eventually they do get to the heart of the matter, with an interesting plot twist that I should have seen coming (one of those head-slapping moments, because the clues were there!) but didn't. Another stellar entry in this series, the author puts you right in the heart of the city of Nablus and without letting on that he's doing so, gives you an interesting education into the city's history, the mingling of various religions and political parties, and the current state of affairs. I always walk away from these books feeling saddened at the way things are in the Middle East, how people must be torn in many directions in their daily lives, to live with things hanging over their heads that we in the Western world can only begin to imagine. I like Omar Yussef a lot--he's an engaging, believable character with a striped past and his own flaws but with an inherent integrity that nevertheless leaves him open to temptation at times. Very much looking forward to the next in this wonderful series. A.
6. A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH by Charles Finch. #1 Charles Lenox historical mystery set in 1865 London. Charles, a member of the nobility, has decided to spend his spare time being a private detective, although he accepts no money for his services. His good friend Lady Jane Grey has approached him to look into the death of a former lady's maid of hers, Prudence Smith, who was said to have committed suicide but was later found to have been murdered by a rare botanical poison. Charles has help from Lady Jane, his doctor friend Tom McConnell, his butler Graham and even his brother, Lord Edmund the baronet and eventually the mysteries--another body turns up later, one of Charles' prime suspects--do get solved. I wasn't sure I'd like this book as it's set in a time period that's one of my least favorite, and I've never been fond of books featuring a lot of the high nobility muckety-mucking about. But this one was quite pleasant, with lots of warm, blazing fires and pots of tea and toast--probably all the more pleasant because I read it primarily over a cool and rainy weekend. LOL The cast of characters were fairly lively and atypical for the nobility of the time, although some of the quirkiness was a bit cliched. I spotted a number of historical errors and anachronisms, but they didn't significantly interfere with the mystery, I didn't think. I did catch some of the clues as they came up but didn't realize their significance until the end when Charles pieced them altogether. A fairly light, quick read and while I wouldn't call it excellent it was a good, enjoyable book despite the historical inaccuracies. B
7. THE STOLEN BLUE by Judith Van Gieson. #1 Claire Reynier mystery. Claire is the collections librarian for a university in New Mexico, fairly recently divorced and loving her newfound freedom. She heads into the Blue, an isolated area a couple of hundred miles from Santa Fe to see an old mentor of hers who is in ill health and is donating his private collection to her university's library. While she is there to collect the books, Burke tells her he's made her the executor of his will, which he's just changed and has witnessed in front of her, talks about what he wants done--and the next morning he ends up dead. His newly discovered daughter Mariah says she followed his wishes and helped him commit suicide the way he wanted. No one thinks much of it, Claire included, because it sounds exactly as though it's how he would have wanted to go. But then his other children raise a stink because his isolated ranch is worth a lot of money. When a single carton of the rarest of Burke's donated books is stolen from Claire's truck before it can even be catalogued into the library, she seeks to find out who stole them and why--and then more questions are raised about Burke's death when the heirs are set to contest the will. Did he die of his own hand, or did someone else help him along in a way he did NOT want? This was an okay book, but I wasn't enthralled. While I thought some of Claire's antics were interesting, the author wrote about her almost dispassionately and I found it hard to feel much of anything about her, her situations, etc. It was just sort of blah. I did finish it, but I'm really not eager to get on with the series, at least not at this time. I just didn't much care one way or another who did what to whom. C.
8. THE HANGING HILL by Chris Grabenstein. #2 in the YA paranormal mystery series featuring Zack Jennings and his family. Eleven-year-old Zack and his stepmother Judy are off to Chatham, CT where Judy's book Curiosity Cat is being produced as a play by the rather famous director Reginald Grimes at the Hanging Hill Theatre. Theatres are notoriously full of ghosts as Zack and Judy, who can also see ghosts, find out quickly, much to their dismay. Some ghosts are benevolent, others seem neutral and still others downright evil. Zack is excited to learn that one of his favorite actresses, Meghan McKenna, will be playing the girl's role in the play and when they meet they get along famously--and Zack learns that Meghan can also see ghosts. Her co-star, Derek Stone, can't--and he's also got an annoying Hollywood mom and is allergic to Zack's beloved dog, Zipper. Strange things begin happening almost from the moment of their arrival and soon Zack and Meghan are off exploring and uncover a deadly plot headed by none other than the strange Grimes himself and which many of the theatre's ghosts are involved in, too. This was a wonderful book, plenty of scary moments and lots of great fun throughout, whether you're eleven years old or eleven plus forty! Highly recommended, and though it stands well on its own, I think it's best enjoyed if you read The Crossroads, the first book featuring Zack and Judy, first. A.
9. THREE MONKEYS by Marianne MacDonald. #7 in the Dido Hoare, antiquarian bookseller mystery series. When an old homeless man Dido has seen around discovers parts of a dismembered body in the trash near Dido's home and bookstore, she becomes involved in yet another strange mystery. The old man had a monkey which Dido eventually captures and which ends up staying with a friend of her father's. As per usual, there are many things Dido somehow "forgets" to report to the police (I'm beginning to call this 'amateur sleuth syndrome' so prevalent is it among these types of books! LOL) and keeps poking into things herself with the help of her sort-of boyfriend, Chris Kennedy, an investigative reporter. She's puzzled by a quite rare and valuable book the man once had shown Dido which isn't in his belongings when he's in hospital after being hit by a car. Of course before solving the crimes, Dido eventually ends up in danger herself, through a series of what I can only call bad choices. Maybe it was just my mood, but there seemed to be a lot of "filler" in this book with the making and drinking of endless cups of tea and coffee, picking Ben (Dido's four-year-old son) up from or taking him to nursery, etc. I like Dido and I LOVE Barnabas, but I would have liked more interesting tidbits about books and the bookselling business as filler instead of the other things. In the earlier books, I got a real sense of Dido's love for her shop and for what she does, but that's been missing for these past couple of books which takes a bit of the sparkle out of them. B-
10. TURN COAT by Jim Butcher. #11 in the Dresden Files paranormal mystery series in which wizard Harry Dresden is sought by Donald Morgan, one of the elite of the Wizard's White Council--and certainly no friend to Harry in the past--to protect him. He shows up on Harry's doorstep seriously wounded and bloodied with the story that the White Council is after him as he is believed to have killed another wizard, which he swears he didn't do, and he figures that seeking solace from Harry would be the last place the Council would expect him to go. Harry believes Morgan and sets out to solve the crime, as he also believes this ties in to his certainty that there is a "Black" Council with someone very high up on the inside feeding information to the Council's enemies. With fingers in multiple pies--protecting Morgan, gleaning information about the murder, and also trying to locate his brother Thomas who's been kidnapped by a skinwalker (whom Harry calls Shagnasty--ha ha ha!)--it's not easy for Wizard Dresden to get done what needs doing and as usual it means sacrificing sleep and pissing a few people off along the way. Another wild tale across Chicago, through the Never-Never, to Edinburgh (where the White Council's headquarters are currently located) and with unexpected alliances, strange creatures, and an impossibly entangled set of twisty circumstances that leaves you wondering what's going to happen right up til the end. Very skillfully narrated by James Marsters, who seems to capture instinctively the heart, soul and the essence of Harry, and who does quite a wide variety of accents and voices very well. I started out reading this series in print, but after listening to the last few in audio, I doubt I would go back now. Very enjoyable! A.
11. IN THE WOODS by Tana French. First in a series featuring characters from Dublin, Ireland police team. (Not truly a series--the second book features only one of the detectives this book does and the third, I understand, features someone totally different. I may be wrong about that, just going by book blurbs.) ANYway....Detective Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox of the Dublin Murder Squad are called out to the small town of Knocknaree to investigate the murder of a 12-year-old girl, found bludgeoned to death and then positioned on an altar stone at an archaeological dig nearby. This is a blow to the gut for Ryan, who lived in Knocknaree as a child and was part of a huge investigation twenty years previously when HE was twelve and his two best friends disappeared in "The Wood" near the village and were never seen again. Rob (who used to be called Adam and now goes by his middle name) was found in the wood with his shoes soaked with blood, clinging to a tree, and totally without memory of what happened. He can't even remember much of anything from before that time. His family moved away, he went to boarding school in England and acquired a bit of a posh accent, and he just blocked that part of his life out--until now. He doesn't tell his boss about his connection to the place, although Cassie knows, and this leads him down some dark paths later in the book. The murder is complicated in that it could be related to many things--the child's father was head of a local group set to preserve the archaelogical dig, which is set to close down and be bulldozed to make room for a motorway. Or could it be a serial pedophile? Or perhaps Katy just saw something she wasn't intended to. Is there a connection between Katy's death and the disappearance of Peter and Jamie, Rob's friends from years ago? There are many different veins to explore before the tale is told, although I did figure it out fairly well in advance. This book sucked me in right from the beginning with the story Rob tells about that summer day when he was twelve. It's a perfect blend of personal story and police investigation, richly written with a compelling style. It was a meaty book that took me a full week to read and digest--but definitely not a slog! If there was a downfall, it was the ending which was a bit anti-climactic. But I am eagerly looking forward to the next one which apparently features only Cassie Maddox in it. A
12. SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE by P.D. James. #4 Adam Dalgliesh British mystery, in which the Scotland Yard detective and his team are off to a nursing school to investigate the untimely death of two nursing students--both dead by poison of different types a couple of weeks apart. One was administered during a demonstration of gastric feeding during an inspection by the General Nursing Council, when Nurse Pearce, playing the role of the patient has her stomach dissolved by a caustic substance added to the milk feed. The second death of Nurse Fallon was at first thought to be suicide as the poison was in her bedtime whisky and lemon. Dalgliesh and crew are called in after the second death and put in many long hours cataloguing who was where during each of the deaths and trying to come up with some background and possible connection between the two nurses, since the idea that the two deaths are unrelated seems almost impossible. Neither of the women were particularly well-liked, but murder? An interesting study on life in an English nursing school in the early70's--very different than my own American nursing education that started about ten years later. P.D. James is the master at weaving an intricate plot, dropping plenty of clues (and red herrings!) and then springing the result on you at the last moment. Very enjoyable classic mystery--I'm sure I read this one years ago, but didn't remember whodunit and look forward to moving ahead in the series. A
13. THE END OF MARKING TIME by C.J. West. Standalone thriller that I would classify as dystopian fiction, set in the near future in a time when all prisoners have been released from their physical prisons and forced to undergo "Re-learning" through a variety of programs. The story is told from the point of view of Michael O'Connor, a twenty-five year old professional burglar who was injured in a police chase and spent several years in a coma, waking up to find a very different place than when he went to sleep. Gone are the jury trials, plea bargaining and time off for good behavior. Instead, you're electronically monitored 24/7 and given lessons and tasks to complete and learn before you can move on--and the punishments for not completing them or for re-offending are...shall we say, severe. Michael, after strengthening his muscles so he can learn to walk and move again, is set up in his own apartment--which he thinks isn't going to be so bad. He's beaten the system before, after all. But the system has gotten a whole lot sneakier while he's been asleep, and the rules have changed. As he careens from one mistake to the next, he's not sure who his friends are (if he has any) nor is he even certain what the objective is that he's supposed to be aiming for. I'm a bit of a fan of dystopian fiction, so the idea of this book really appealed to me. The storyline is very creative and the world Michael now lives in just as uniquely horrific as many other books of this type, where there has been plagues, wars or social upheaval. However, the book had one major problem (at least, it was a problem to me!) which distracted me quite a lot from the story itself. Writing a book in first person singular is not an easy thing to do effectively. The key is to tell the story in an interesting way from the point of view of the main character without over-populating the prose with the word "I" in all its various forms. Unfortunately, this book was written in just that style, with the opening paragraph containing "I" thirteen times. While the story itself was interesting, I could only read a few short chapters at a time without having to put the book aside to read something else for awhile--which is just a personal thing, since the "I" overuse is something that drives me particularly crazy. I'm afraid I wanted to hit that red button rather early on, as the "I" thing makes the protagonist seem very self-centered and much less engaging than he could have been, and I would have graded it higher if not for that one thing. B-
14. BIG RED TEQUILA by Rick Riordan (audio) #1 Jackson "Tres" Navarre mystery set in San Antonio, TX. Tres has just arrived back home from San Francisco, having been gone for more than ten years. His old girlfriend Lillian has asked him to come back, and he does so with hopes of starting things off where they were before. In addition, he begins looking into the murder of his father, who had been Sheriff at the time and who had been gunned down in front of his house with Tres looking on. There are a lot of people who really wish Tres would have just stayed gone and would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, but that's not going to happen. When Lillian disappears a few days later, the list of possible reasons begins to multiply the more Tres looks into things. Tres is a bit of an atypical Texas 'cowboy'--he has an English degree and is a Tai Chi master, and though there were things he loved about San Francisco--including a feisty Chinese lawyer named May Lee who actually comes to San Antonio to help him--he realizes that this really is his home. The book's name comes from Tres's favored beverage--tequila mixed with Big Red cream soda--which he becomes reacquainted with before too long. I enjoyed this quite a lot, which sort of surprised me, as generally I'm not crazy about books set in the South or full of rednecks. There were a lot of great characters in this book, and I do hope at least some of them are recurring folks in the series.The reader did an excellent job with the book, the different voices and the 'tone' of the book was just right, too. I hadn't figured out the bad guy for sure--there were lots of red herrings being tossed around--til right up to the end, which was a nice surprise, and I will definitely read on (or listen on, if I can!) to see what Tres gets up to next. A.
15. THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES by Brunonia Barry. Novel set in Salem, MA about Zee Finch, a woman in her 30's who comes to her hometown from Boston, where she'd been working as a psychologist. Her father has Parkinson's disease and at his request, his longtime boyfriend Melville had kept from her how seriously ill Finch was. But now Finch has kicked Melville out of the house over some old slight and Zee is left to try to figure out how to care for him. She also is mourning a patient of hers, a bi-polar woman named Lilly who committed suicide and reminds Zee so much of her own mother that lines become blurred. Zee's engagement crumbles as she stays away from Boston longer and realizes that she really didn't want to marry Michael anyway. I really enjoyed this story, although I did see the plot twist coming from a mile away. I like the author's writing style, blending a bit of the mystical with the practical and capturing the essence of Salem, lots of literary and historical references too. Some of the characters from her previous book, The Lace Reader are briefly mentioned also and I hope she writes more stories set here. Her characters, even the minor ones, are wonderfully drawn--I could clearly see them in my mind's eye and felt I knew them very well by the end of the book. In short, a great escape of a novel that leaves you with a little something to think about while you're enjoying the ride. A.
16. MAGICAL AROMATHERAPY by Scott Cunningham. A slim little reference book that takes traditional aromatherapy one step further and describes how to apply the power of scent magickally by empowering the energy within the plants (or parts of the plants being used) that provide the scent as well as the scents themselves. It's a handy reference with type of plant, parts used, magickal association, and techniques for use as well as the appropriate cautions and warnings. The appendices with where to get supplies and such are mostly outdated now, but all in all, a handy tool for a quick reference, though given a choice between the two, I think I prefer his Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews. B.
18. MURDER FOR CHRIST'S MASS by Maureen Ash. #4 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" mystery set in Lincoln, UK in 1201. Bascot, a Templar Knight recovering from several years of capture in the Middle East by serving as a household knight to Nicolaa de la Haye, castellan for the city of Lincoln, investigates a murder for her husband, Gerard Camville who is the Sheriff. A young apprentice who works at the mint is found stabbed in the heart on Christmas morning, although he has been dead a few days already. Bascot's observant young assistant Gianni spots a coin in the vicinity, and it turns out to be an old coin minted during the reign of King Stephen decades ago. Bascot and Camville both fear this means there is a treasure trove nearby and seek to find it lest King John accuse Camville of treachery and withholding monies from the crown--while Nicolaa de la Haye holds the king's favor, the Sheriff has been less than supportive in times past. One death leads to another as Bascot, Gianni and Camville strive to locate not only the murderer from among a whole smorgasbord of suspects, but to find the treasure trove before Twelfth Night, which signals the end of the Christmas holidays and the return of the county's coroner--who would be sure to put in a bad word for Gerard Camville with the King any time he can. I really enjoy this series as the author does a wonderful job of showing 'what things were like' back in that time period without making you realize she's taught you something. While some of the minor characters are a bit two-dimensional, and the dialogue sometimes seems a little flat, the sense of time and mood is truly outstanding. It will be interesting to see in the next book if Bascot truly does rejoin the Templar order and leaves Gianni training as a clerk in Lincoln, or if circumstances have him staying around. B+.
DNF: PLAGUE YEAR by Jeff Carlson--audio version. It started off very promising but after awhile the author wandered off on tangents into the past with numerous details of the main players' lives that distracted from the story. I gave up listening after about 2 hours of narration.
Currently Reading: THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Thomas L. Friedman, which is quite the door-stopper and non-fiction to boot, so I'm sure I'll be at it for quite awhile. Listening to IN A STRANGE CITY by Laura Lippman, one of the Tess Monaghan series. I'm not reading anything else in print at the moment as I'm having a bit of a "weed out weekend" and trying to find a few books I can throw back...running out of shelf space yet again. *sigh*
Cheryl
2. MOONLIGHT DOWNS by Adrian Hyland. Set in the outback of Australia, this is the first in a series featuring Emily Tempest, the 26-year-old daughter of a whitefeller miner and an Aboriginal woman. Emily returns to the outback after several years meandering around, trying various university courses, and still not sure what to do with her life. Since her mother died young, she spent much of her time growing up in Moonlight Downs, the blackfeller settlement in the outback, but she doesn't feel totally a part of either the white or the black community. Returning now, she almost feels like she's home, but the feeling is shattered when the elderly head of the settlement who was like a second father to her, is brutally murdered just a couple of days later. Emily is crushed as the community scatters, most back to the town of Bluebush, a scrubby settlement full of rough-living folks with no redeeming qualities. But there Emily ends up too, working in a menial job and living in a tiny, squalid apartment, as she has basically nowhere else to go. Lincoln's daughter Hazel, Emily's best friend, has gone off to do her grieving the aboriginal way. Emily puzzles over who could have killed Lincoln--was it Blakie, the wild, crazed witchdoctor who lived in the bush? Earl Marsh, a cattle baron set on buying up neighboring property? Or someone else? Emily feels like the police aren't too interested in finding the truth so begins poking her nose in and gets herself into some sticky situations along the way. All I can say is....WOW! What an awesome book! The author did such a great job with Emily's character, the cultural immersion, and the outback itself as a main character in the story. The racial tensions and societal norms were treated matter-of-factly and neither glossed over nor played up--they just WERE. I learned so much, and had no idea at the time that I was being educated--the book was a total pleasure read! I have to admit that I did spot the bad guy as soon as he was introduced, at least was pretty sure it was him, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment of the book. I am so glad I've got the second in the series on the way to me, as I know it won't be long before I get to it. If this isn't among my top ten of the year, I'll eat my shorts. :D A++
3. WHEN THE DEVIL HOLDS THE CANDLE by Karin Fossum. #3 Inspector Conrad Sejer series set in Norway. This book seems to be more about the lives of several people involved in various crimes than with the police procedures or crime detection. Andreas, an 18 year old, is reported missing by his frantic mother. Determined to convince the police that he is a 'good boy,' which seems to hold true on the surface--he had a steady job, never gave his mother trouble, had no police record--she refers them to her friend Irma as a character reference for Andreas. Unknown to his mother, Irma has been a victim of Andreas and his friend Zipp. We see a different story told from the point of view of Zipp, an indolent unemployed youth who is Andreas' best friend. He and Andreas would drive or wander around the town committing petty theft and burglary, looking for easy marks to steal a handbag from and get some beer money. It's also told from the point of view of Irma, an aging woman who seems virtually alone in the world and is definitely mentally ill in some way. I enjoy these series of mysteries, but they're always a little odd, skittering here and there from varying points of view such that it's sometimes hard to get a coherent picture of things. I also don't feel like I have a good grasp on who Sejer is, because there isn't all that much time spent on his police work or his personal life--bits and pieces here and there is all. It's an interesting book, and I will continue to read on in the series, but I came away from this one feeling somehow let down and dissatisfied--like I knew I was supposed to be more horrified than I was, or something. Hard to put a finger on it, but not as enjoyable to me as her previous books were. B.
4. MERCY FALLS by William Kent Krueger. (AUDIO) #5 Cork O'Connor mystery set in northern Minnesota (and partially in Chicago in this book.) Cork, sheriff of Tamarack County, has two investigations to divide his time between. First, a sniper shoots one of his deputies--and the bullet was most likely meant for him. Although Marcia Dodds will recover, Cork feels a certain amount of guilt and wants to find out the reason for the attempted hit and who's responsible. But he also has to investigate the brutal death of Eddie Jacoby, a man from Chicago who is in town on business. It turns out that Eddie is the half-brother of Ben Jacoby, an old flame of Jo's (Cork's wife) from college, part of a rich and powerful family who even fly in a 'security expert' to help. The threats against Cork continue, so he sends Jo and the kids to her sister Rose's in Chicago. Through a long and twisty tale, Cork, his team, Dina Willner (the security expert) chase clues and false trails in an attempt to find the bad guy. It has been several years since I read the previous book in this series. I've tried hard to like it because the author is local and I used to live in the area the books take place in. The books have interesting stories and I do love the local flavor. Cork and his secondary characters are likable and interesting. And yet some niggling thing about these books always annoys the heck out of me. I still can't figure out what exactly bugs me, but it wasn't any different this time--even listening to the book in audio instead of reading in print didn't change things. Part of it is the relationship between Cork and Jo, his wife. Something is just "off" there. Also, the plots seem kind of contrived. In this book--as with previous books in the series--the bad guy was very obvious to me from the time they entered the picture. A whole slew of red herrings didn't change my mind about that and I kept wanting to slap Cork upside the head for missing big clues. The plot seemed really stretched with way too many coincidences popping up. And I absolutely HATE it when an author doesn't wrap up the story in the book at hand. Yes, there has to be some continuity from one book to the next, perhaps leaving questions about what happens to some aspect of the main character's personal life--but to totally omit a resolution to the crimes committed during the book, even if the 'answer' was known to a couple of people is just deplorable, IMO. Here's the deal: this cliffhanger, more than wanting me to go out and read the next book, makes me realize that I don't really care one way or another what happens. And whatever the mysterious "it" is that bugs me about this series, I'm going to listen to it and just stop right here. C-
5. THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET by Matt Beynon Rees. #3 Omar Yussef Sirhan mystery set in Palestine, this one in the city of Nablus where Omar and his family have come for his friend Sami's wedding. Before that happens though, Sami, a police officer, gets tangled up in an investigation regarding a murdered Samaritan--a small religious sect related to Judaism with a temple on Mt. Gerishim above the city. When Sami is warned off the investigation by one of the powerful political sects, Omar takes up the slack and investigates with his friend Khamis Zeydan, Bethlehem's police chief (also in town for the wedding) and discover that Khamis has a personal tie to the investigation. Was the young man's death related to the recent theft of an ancient, sacred scroll or was it motivated by something personal or political. In Palenstine, it seems that politics figure heavily in every investigation and the police are often in the pay of various political sects who then direct how the investigation should go. Omar Yussef is outraged by this and wants to get at the truth--which often (and in this case also) leads to him putting himself in harm's way. Eventually they do get to the heart of the matter, with an interesting plot twist that I should have seen coming (one of those head-slapping moments, because the clues were there!) but didn't. Another stellar entry in this series, the author puts you right in the heart of the city of Nablus and without letting on that he's doing so, gives you an interesting education into the city's history, the mingling of various religions and political parties, and the current state of affairs. I always walk away from these books feeling saddened at the way things are in the Middle East, how people must be torn in many directions in their daily lives, to live with things hanging over their heads that we in the Western world can only begin to imagine. I like Omar Yussef a lot--he's an engaging, believable character with a striped past and his own flaws but with an inherent integrity that nevertheless leaves him open to temptation at times. Very much looking forward to the next in this wonderful series. A.
6. A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH by Charles Finch. #1 Charles Lenox historical mystery set in 1865 London. Charles, a member of the nobility, has decided to spend his spare time being a private detective, although he accepts no money for his services. His good friend Lady Jane Grey has approached him to look into the death of a former lady's maid of hers, Prudence Smith, who was said to have committed suicide but was later found to have been murdered by a rare botanical poison. Charles has help from Lady Jane, his doctor friend Tom McConnell, his butler Graham and even his brother, Lord Edmund the baronet and eventually the mysteries--another body turns up later, one of Charles' prime suspects--do get solved. I wasn't sure I'd like this book as it's set in a time period that's one of my least favorite, and I've never been fond of books featuring a lot of the high nobility muckety-mucking about. But this one was quite pleasant, with lots of warm, blazing fires and pots of tea and toast--probably all the more pleasant because I read it primarily over a cool and rainy weekend. LOL The cast of characters were fairly lively and atypical for the nobility of the time, although some of the quirkiness was a bit cliched. I spotted a number of historical errors and anachronisms, but they didn't significantly interfere with the mystery, I didn't think. I did catch some of the clues as they came up but didn't realize their significance until the end when Charles pieced them altogether. A fairly light, quick read and while I wouldn't call it excellent it was a good, enjoyable book despite the historical inaccuracies. B
7. THE STOLEN BLUE by Judith Van Gieson. #1 Claire Reynier mystery. Claire is the collections librarian for a university in New Mexico, fairly recently divorced and loving her newfound freedom. She heads into the Blue, an isolated area a couple of hundred miles from Santa Fe to see an old mentor of hers who is in ill health and is donating his private collection to her university's library. While she is there to collect the books, Burke tells her he's made her the executor of his will, which he's just changed and has witnessed in front of her, talks about what he wants done--and the next morning he ends up dead. His newly discovered daughter Mariah says she followed his wishes and helped him commit suicide the way he wanted. No one thinks much of it, Claire included, because it sounds exactly as though it's how he would have wanted to go. But then his other children raise a stink because his isolated ranch is worth a lot of money. When a single carton of the rarest of Burke's donated books is stolen from Claire's truck before it can even be catalogued into the library, she seeks to find out who stole them and why--and then more questions are raised about Burke's death when the heirs are set to contest the will. Did he die of his own hand, or did someone else help him along in a way he did NOT want? This was an okay book, but I wasn't enthralled. While I thought some of Claire's antics were interesting, the author wrote about her almost dispassionately and I found it hard to feel much of anything about her, her situations, etc. It was just sort of blah. I did finish it, but I'm really not eager to get on with the series, at least not at this time. I just didn't much care one way or another who did what to whom. C.
8. THE HANGING HILL by Chris Grabenstein. #2 in the YA paranormal mystery series featuring Zack Jennings and his family. Eleven-year-old Zack and his stepmother Judy are off to Chatham, CT where Judy's book Curiosity Cat is being produced as a play by the rather famous director Reginald Grimes at the Hanging Hill Theatre. Theatres are notoriously full of ghosts as Zack and Judy, who can also see ghosts, find out quickly, much to their dismay. Some ghosts are benevolent, others seem neutral and still others downright evil. Zack is excited to learn that one of his favorite actresses, Meghan McKenna, will be playing the girl's role in the play and when they meet they get along famously--and Zack learns that Meghan can also see ghosts. Her co-star, Derek Stone, can't--and he's also got an annoying Hollywood mom and is allergic to Zack's beloved dog, Zipper. Strange things begin happening almost from the moment of their arrival and soon Zack and Meghan are off exploring and uncover a deadly plot headed by none other than the strange Grimes himself and which many of the theatre's ghosts are involved in, too. This was a wonderful book, plenty of scary moments and lots of great fun throughout, whether you're eleven years old or eleven plus forty! Highly recommended, and though it stands well on its own, I think it's best enjoyed if you read The Crossroads, the first book featuring Zack and Judy, first. A.
9. THREE MONKEYS by Marianne MacDonald. #7 in the Dido Hoare, antiquarian bookseller mystery series. When an old homeless man Dido has seen around discovers parts of a dismembered body in the trash near Dido's home and bookstore, she becomes involved in yet another strange mystery. The old man had a monkey which Dido eventually captures and which ends up staying with a friend of her father's. As per usual, there are many things Dido somehow "forgets" to report to the police (I'm beginning to call this 'amateur sleuth syndrome' so prevalent is it among these types of books! LOL) and keeps poking into things herself with the help of her sort-of boyfriend, Chris Kennedy, an investigative reporter. She's puzzled by a quite rare and valuable book the man once had shown Dido which isn't in his belongings when he's in hospital after being hit by a car. Of course before solving the crimes, Dido eventually ends up in danger herself, through a series of what I can only call bad choices. Maybe it was just my mood, but there seemed to be a lot of "filler" in this book with the making and drinking of endless cups of tea and coffee, picking Ben (Dido's four-year-old son) up from or taking him to nursery, etc. I like Dido and I LOVE Barnabas, but I would have liked more interesting tidbits about books and the bookselling business as filler instead of the other things. In the earlier books, I got a real sense of Dido's love for her shop and for what she does, but that's been missing for these past couple of books which takes a bit of the sparkle out of them. B-
10. TURN COAT by Jim Butcher. #11 in the Dresden Files paranormal mystery series in which wizard Harry Dresden is sought by Donald Morgan, one of the elite of the Wizard's White Council--and certainly no friend to Harry in the past--to protect him. He shows up on Harry's doorstep seriously wounded and bloodied with the story that the White Council is after him as he is believed to have killed another wizard, which he swears he didn't do, and he figures that seeking solace from Harry would be the last place the Council would expect him to go. Harry believes Morgan and sets out to solve the crime, as he also believes this ties in to his certainty that there is a "Black" Council with someone very high up on the inside feeding information to the Council's enemies. With fingers in multiple pies--protecting Morgan, gleaning information about the murder, and also trying to locate his brother Thomas who's been kidnapped by a skinwalker (whom Harry calls Shagnasty--ha ha ha!)--it's not easy for Wizard Dresden to get done what needs doing and as usual it means sacrificing sleep and pissing a few people off along the way. Another wild tale across Chicago, through the Never-Never, to Edinburgh (where the White Council's headquarters are currently located) and with unexpected alliances, strange creatures, and an impossibly entangled set of twisty circumstances that leaves you wondering what's going to happen right up til the end. Very skillfully narrated by James Marsters, who seems to capture instinctively the heart, soul and the essence of Harry, and who does quite a wide variety of accents and voices very well. I started out reading this series in print, but after listening to the last few in audio, I doubt I would go back now. Very enjoyable! A.
11. IN THE WOODS by Tana French. First in a series featuring characters from Dublin, Ireland police team. (Not truly a series--the second book features only one of the detectives this book does and the third, I understand, features someone totally different. I may be wrong about that, just going by book blurbs.) ANYway....Detective Rob Ryan and his partner Cassie Maddox of the Dublin Murder Squad are called out to the small town of Knocknaree to investigate the murder of a 12-year-old girl, found bludgeoned to death and then positioned on an altar stone at an archaeological dig nearby. This is a blow to the gut for Ryan, who lived in Knocknaree as a child and was part of a huge investigation twenty years previously when HE was twelve and his two best friends disappeared in "The Wood" near the village and were never seen again. Rob (who used to be called Adam and now goes by his middle name) was found in the wood with his shoes soaked with blood, clinging to a tree, and totally without memory of what happened. He can't even remember much of anything from before that time. His family moved away, he went to boarding school in England and acquired a bit of a posh accent, and he just blocked that part of his life out--until now. He doesn't tell his boss about his connection to the place, although Cassie knows, and this leads him down some dark paths later in the book. The murder is complicated in that it could be related to many things--the child's father was head of a local group set to preserve the archaelogical dig, which is set to close down and be bulldozed to make room for a motorway. Or could it be a serial pedophile? Or perhaps Katy just saw something she wasn't intended to. Is there a connection between Katy's death and the disappearance of Peter and Jamie, Rob's friends from years ago? There are many different veins to explore before the tale is told, although I did figure it out fairly well in advance. This book sucked me in right from the beginning with the story Rob tells about that summer day when he was twelve. It's a perfect blend of personal story and police investigation, richly written with a compelling style. It was a meaty book that took me a full week to read and digest--but definitely not a slog! If there was a downfall, it was the ending which was a bit anti-climactic. But I am eagerly looking forward to the next one which apparently features only Cassie Maddox in it. A
12. SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE by P.D. James. #4 Adam Dalgliesh British mystery, in which the Scotland Yard detective and his team are off to a nursing school to investigate the untimely death of two nursing students--both dead by poison of different types a couple of weeks apart. One was administered during a demonstration of gastric feeding during an inspection by the General Nursing Council, when Nurse Pearce, playing the role of the patient has her stomach dissolved by a caustic substance added to the milk feed. The second death of Nurse Fallon was at first thought to be suicide as the poison was in her bedtime whisky and lemon. Dalgliesh and crew are called in after the second death and put in many long hours cataloguing who was where during each of the deaths and trying to come up with some background and possible connection between the two nurses, since the idea that the two deaths are unrelated seems almost impossible. Neither of the women were particularly well-liked, but murder? An interesting study on life in an English nursing school in the early70's--very different than my own American nursing education that started about ten years later. P.D. James is the master at weaving an intricate plot, dropping plenty of clues (and red herrings!) and then springing the result on you at the last moment. Very enjoyable classic mystery--I'm sure I read this one years ago, but didn't remember whodunit and look forward to moving ahead in the series. A
13. THE END OF MARKING TIME by C.J. West. Standalone thriller that I would classify as dystopian fiction, set in the near future in a time when all prisoners have been released from their physical prisons and forced to undergo "Re-learning" through a variety of programs. The story is told from the point of view of Michael O'Connor, a twenty-five year old professional burglar who was injured in a police chase and spent several years in a coma, waking up to find a very different place than when he went to sleep. Gone are the jury trials, plea bargaining and time off for good behavior. Instead, you're electronically monitored 24/7 and given lessons and tasks to complete and learn before you can move on--and the punishments for not completing them or for re-offending are...shall we say, severe. Michael, after strengthening his muscles so he can learn to walk and move again, is set up in his own apartment--which he thinks isn't going to be so bad. He's beaten the system before, after all. But the system has gotten a whole lot sneakier while he's been asleep, and the rules have changed. As he careens from one mistake to the next, he's not sure who his friends are (if he has any) nor is he even certain what the objective is that he's supposed to be aiming for. I'm a bit of a fan of dystopian fiction, so the idea of this book really appealed to me. The storyline is very creative and the world Michael now lives in just as uniquely horrific as many other books of this type, where there has been plagues, wars or social upheaval. However, the book had one major problem (at least, it was a problem to me!) which distracted me quite a lot from the story itself. Writing a book in first person singular is not an easy thing to do effectively. The key is to tell the story in an interesting way from the point of view of the main character without over-populating the prose with the word "I" in all its various forms. Unfortunately, this book was written in just that style, with the opening paragraph containing "I" thirteen times. While the story itself was interesting, I could only read a few short chapters at a time without having to put the book aside to read something else for awhile--which is just a personal thing, since the "I" overuse is something that drives me particularly crazy. I'm afraid I wanted to hit that red button rather early on, as the "I" thing makes the protagonist seem very self-centered and much less engaging than he could have been, and I would have graded it higher if not for that one thing. B-
14. BIG RED TEQUILA by Rick Riordan (audio) #1 Jackson "Tres" Navarre mystery set in San Antonio, TX. Tres has just arrived back home from San Francisco, having been gone for more than ten years. His old girlfriend Lillian has asked him to come back, and he does so with hopes of starting things off where they were before. In addition, he begins looking into the murder of his father, who had been Sheriff at the time and who had been gunned down in front of his house with Tres looking on. There are a lot of people who really wish Tres would have just stayed gone and would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, but that's not going to happen. When Lillian disappears a few days later, the list of possible reasons begins to multiply the more Tres looks into things. Tres is a bit of an atypical Texas 'cowboy'--he has an English degree and is a Tai Chi master, and though there were things he loved about San Francisco--including a feisty Chinese lawyer named May Lee who actually comes to San Antonio to help him--he realizes that this really is his home. The book's name comes from Tres's favored beverage--tequila mixed with Big Red cream soda--which he becomes reacquainted with before too long. I enjoyed this quite a lot, which sort of surprised me, as generally I'm not crazy about books set in the South or full of rednecks. There were a lot of great characters in this book, and I do hope at least some of them are recurring folks in the series.The reader did an excellent job with the book, the different voices and the 'tone' of the book was just right, too. I hadn't figured out the bad guy for sure--there were lots of red herrings being tossed around--til right up to the end, which was a nice surprise, and I will definitely read on (or listen on, if I can!) to see what Tres gets up to next. A.
15. THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES by Brunonia Barry. Novel set in Salem, MA about Zee Finch, a woman in her 30's who comes to her hometown from Boston, where she'd been working as a psychologist. Her father has Parkinson's disease and at his request, his longtime boyfriend Melville had kept from her how seriously ill Finch was. But now Finch has kicked Melville out of the house over some old slight and Zee is left to try to figure out how to care for him. She also is mourning a patient of hers, a bi-polar woman named Lilly who committed suicide and reminds Zee so much of her own mother that lines become blurred. Zee's engagement crumbles as she stays away from Boston longer and realizes that she really didn't want to marry Michael anyway. I really enjoyed this story, although I did see the plot twist coming from a mile away. I like the author's writing style, blending a bit of the mystical with the practical and capturing the essence of Salem, lots of literary and historical references too. Some of the characters from her previous book, The Lace Reader are briefly mentioned also and I hope she writes more stories set here. Her characters, even the minor ones, are wonderfully drawn--I could clearly see them in my mind's eye and felt I knew them very well by the end of the book. In short, a great escape of a novel that leaves you with a little something to think about while you're enjoying the ride. A.
16. MAGICAL AROMATHERAPY by Scott Cunningham. A slim little reference book that takes traditional aromatherapy one step further and describes how to apply the power of scent magickally by empowering the energy within the plants (or parts of the plants being used) that provide the scent as well as the scents themselves. It's a handy reference with type of plant, parts used, magickal association, and techniques for use as well as the appropriate cautions and warnings. The appendices with where to get supplies and such are mostly outdated now, but all in all, a handy tool for a quick reference, though given a choice between the two, I think I prefer his Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews. B.
18. MURDER FOR CHRIST'S MASS by Maureen Ash. #4 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" mystery set in Lincoln, UK in 1201. Bascot, a Templar Knight recovering from several years of capture in the Middle East by serving as a household knight to Nicolaa de la Haye, castellan for the city of Lincoln, investigates a murder for her husband, Gerard Camville who is the Sheriff. A young apprentice who works at the mint is found stabbed in the heart on Christmas morning, although he has been dead a few days already. Bascot's observant young assistant Gianni spots a coin in the vicinity, and it turns out to be an old coin minted during the reign of King Stephen decades ago. Bascot and Camville both fear this means there is a treasure trove nearby and seek to find it lest King John accuse Camville of treachery and withholding monies from the crown--while Nicolaa de la Haye holds the king's favor, the Sheriff has been less than supportive in times past. One death leads to another as Bascot, Gianni and Camville strive to locate not only the murderer from among a whole smorgasbord of suspects, but to find the treasure trove before Twelfth Night, which signals the end of the Christmas holidays and the return of the county's coroner--who would be sure to put in a bad word for Gerard Camville with the King any time he can. I really enjoy this series as the author does a wonderful job of showing 'what things were like' back in that time period without making you realize she's taught you something. While some of the minor characters are a bit two-dimensional, and the dialogue sometimes seems a little flat, the sense of time and mood is truly outstanding. It will be interesting to see in the next book if Bascot truly does rejoin the Templar order and leaves Gianni training as a clerk in Lincoln, or if circumstances have him staying around. B+.
DNF: PLAGUE YEAR by Jeff Carlson--audio version. It started off very promising but after awhile the author wandered off on tangents into the past with numerous details of the main players' lives that distracted from the story. I gave up listening after about 2 hours of narration.
Currently Reading: THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY by Thomas L. Friedman, which is quite the door-stopper and non-fiction to boot, so I'm sure I'll be at it for quite awhile. Listening to IN A STRANGE CITY by Laura Lippman, one of the Tess Monaghan series. I'm not reading anything else in print at the moment as I'm having a bit of a "weed out weekend" and trying to find a few books I can throw back...running out of shelf space yet again. *sigh*
Cheryl
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